Backdoor into my heart
by Kilameida
Summary: In which YOU, a summoner-in-training, finds a mortally wounded fox and nurses her to health. And who knows? Maybe you'll do a lot more. Maybe she'll fall in love with you. Maybe she'll burn you to the ground. Do you know?
1. Chapter 1

Backdoor Into My Heart

Hi.

I'm me.

I'm going to tell you a story that you've forgot.

What? You didn't forget? Well screw that just read this thing.

... please? == an author in desperate need of proof to his parents that he's DOING SOMETHING

* * *

Humans are human-shaped for a reason. These reasons are unknown, because the Creator had said: "Let there be humans." And there were humans, standing around with arms and legs and a head in the shape that can only be called Human, and it was then ever since. The theory of evolution attempted to explain that we are human-shaped because we evolved into it, but exactly _why_ do humans need to have opposable thumbs were never explained, or why wouldn't it work if we were, say, a completely different shape.

Nevertheless there were certain significant… differences, so to speak, between being a human and being a fox. A human views the world differently from a fox. For one, a human can't view the world from around five inches off the ground and smell his way around, he definitely couldn't see the glowing trails of scent or the vibrations that rabbits or other foxes or even humans give off. Humans, instead, rely on their eyes so much, that they often fail to – oh.

Well, of course she'd trip over that branch that was hidden underneath the bush. Of course she'd fall on the one armed foxtrap that was left behind in this forest. Of course she'd scream in pain and attract attention from all over the woods.

She really loves her form, she does, but some things would be a lot easier, although admittedly, a lot more painful and threateningly fatal, as a fox.

She glanced at her arm, then at the gaping mess that was her belly. That's just one more injury to add to the list, then.

She dragged herself towards the distant opening in the trees, towards the small hut in the distance. She would scream, but if there was something about the human body that she'd fine remarkable, is the fact that the brain, which appears to be able to ignore and completely shut down organs that were screaming in pain at it.

Foxes were so much more sensible. If a leg hurts, it stays hurt to remind them that they shouldn't be _that _bloody damn stupid, and also to remind them that you're going to die since you can't hunt.

* * *

You'd wake up. You really would.

But hot _damn_, who'd want to wake up after a dream like that?

It was an amazing dream. It was an incredible dream. It's like you were fighting god-like entities whose forms you really can't quite remember – you put it down to the fact that you'll keep forgetting the tiny details in dreams, and they'll fade away entirely over time – and there were hot girls around you fighting with you, and you were throwing stars and everything –

But you know that as the day wears on, you'd forget. See, you're already forgetting the faces of the girls now. Dammit.

Still, the covers are very, _very_ comfortable, and most of the work that you'll be doing happens at night anyways. You might as well sleep again, aren't you right?

Yes, you thought. Of course I'm right.

So you turned over, trying to find a more comfortable position in which to sleep in, when you hear a scraping noise.

No, not really a scraping noise. It's more of a _dragging_ noise. Granted, you don't really hear something being dragged, but whatever the object was, it was clear that it was scraping dirt and grass off your front yard. It's not exactly your front yard – when you're living in a circular clearing in the middle of a forest, you don't really have a front yard, and given that you're only borrowing the house until the Demacians will allow you passage over the Great Barrier, even if this house had a front yard, it wouldn't be yours, per se.

You're going off on a tangent again, and you made a mental note to fix that. You also made a mental note to try and check whatever the dragging noise is, but the charm of the warm and soft bed is so powerful…

There was a knock on your – the house owner's – well, temporarily yours – backdoor. It leads into the kitchen, and it's the door you use when you need to throw away trash.

This is odd, because the back door must have been dirty. It would be the kind of back door that was, despite belonging in a house situated in the middle of a clearing, clearly said that 'this is the back of the house' due to the lingering pieces of wood, fruit skins, and the occasional garbage that fell out of the trash bag when he was taking it out. It was near the compost heap, for god's sake. Why would anyone knock there? Why would anyone with a sense of hygiene knock _there_?

Your curiosity engaged in mortal combat with your sleepiness and won in not only a curbstomp but also a boulder-stomp and possibly a castle-stomp, because your curiosity coupled with boredom by being held up by Demacian customs for so long could very likely move castles. You rushed out half-naked, because that's how you sleep. Besides, people said that they didn't really mind watching you half-naked. You kind of wonder why's would that be. Shouldn't half-naked people be against the law or something?

Whatever, you think. You're very, very _befuddled_ about the state of, well, everything. You just woke up and you can't really think straight, and due to chasing this line of thinking down, you forgot what law was it you were thinking about. Was it the law on sleeping? No, was it the law on beautiful women? Staggering to your feet and swaying like a drunk, you try to think about things and put them into order, and wish you didn't, because you stood up too fast, causing your vision to scatter into black.

When they came back again, in little dots, you have already crashed into your back door. You don't really know why you're in the back door. What were you here for again? Gardening? Oh, wait, maybe you were trying to throw out last night's trash. God, you are _so_ sleepy.

You stagger forwards into the door, and tried not to stagger again, because god, that _hurts_. Have to make it open outwards sometimes, but that makes it easier for you to go out half-naked and break that lawy thing and – you probably should think a little.

Whatever was the law on half-naked things, you stepped backwards and dragged the door open, and you saw a bundle of red and white fur on your feet.

Fur was probably the wrong word to describe it. To call it fur would be to compare, nay, _equate _it to other pelts that came from similar animal. This is the kind of fur with gloss even before it was treated. It shined. It glistened. It was the kind of smooth that made you feel the _fluff_ of it even before you touched it.

Whoever was wearing all that fur must've been rich as all hell.

It was also wet and red, and you snap out of your hazy, sleepy stupor as you smell rust-like liquid in the air. Or at least you tried to, because your body is refusing to keep up with your mind, and so you still feel a little fuzzy and sick.

You threw up, barely missing the unmoving pile.

It could be a dead body. It could be a person, underneath all that fur, and that person has got to be a woman, because men simply don't have legs that was _that_ hairless, and most _definitely_ not _that _perfectly rounded. Also, her sleeves have embroidered dragon-like designs on them that were tattered but reveals a very definitely feminine arm underneath it.

It still could be a guy. God knows how many south Demacian celebrities were camp as all hell.

But then you noticed that there were welts on the person's arms, and you suddenly remember, again, the rust-like smell in the air _that was most definitely not stopping and means that this person is very much alive, although probably for not much longer if you keep fucking around like this._

"Crap. Crap. Are you o-"

But she's not okay, is she? You'd have to be dumb to ask the question. You also decide to call this person a she, because even if she turns out to be a very effeminate male, that male deserves a decidedly more feminine pronoun.

So grabbed her by the legs, dragged her inside, and closed the door behind her.

* * *

The first thing that you did was to try and lift her onto your bed, and you found that she was gushing more blood than most humans could ever hope to generate in their lives, and on top of that, she's squirming feverishly as well.

You thought that your mind was probably exaggerating, in all this confusing haze, but hey – if you can't believe your eyes, who can you believe?

You're going to need a better way to do this. So you gently, gently lay her down on the floor, and took some of your clean shirts – because obviously, dirty laundry would just infect the wound – and then gingerly moved the fur aside. It was actually a rather tall order, because she kept squirming, and – even though you couldn't see her face – you thought that she was slipping in and out of consciousness, because she seems to both be going prone and trying to get away from you, alternately.

All this damn fur is covering her. You really should take the stupid coat off as soon as you can, but first things first: treat her probably fatal wound. And to do that, you need her on the bed. But since you can't, you're going to have to do the best you can on the floor next to your bed.

You're very sure this is proper medical procedure, but it's a bit difficult to think when you're panicking like this, isn't it?

So as gently as you can, you try to force your way through the tails in order to get to her face and main body and find the source of bleeding.

You the realize, right before you dive into the fluffy ball, that you don't really have anything to stem the bleeding _with_, so you grab some clean shirts that were off the laundry and bound them, after some difficulty, into a strip of cloth that could function as a makeshift bandage.

By the time you were finished – because, and let's be honest, you've never actually tied together a bandage, or any sort of rope with two shirts before – she had already gone prone again, and it didn't look like she's going to regain half-consciousness anytime soon. This should be your chance.

Taking a deep breath, because you should never try to fix someone's wounds while panicking, you took handfuls of the fur and yanked, then winced, because that is one damn heavy fur coat. You try to yank it off again, but after thinking about it, it's likely that her body's weight is resting on it. Working quickly, you flip her so that her legs are, more or less, lying upright on the floor, meaning that she's probably also lying upright.

You work on getting rid of her fur coat, but then you realized some things. That it is, in fact, not a coat, but a scarf. And that it was an unnecessarily long scarf – either that, or it was more than a single scarf. Who would wear this many scarves? And despite the urgency of the situation, you can't help but marvel again at the velvet texture of the scarf – coat – furry _thing_ that was covering her body. She must be rich as hell.

You give up on trying to take the coat – scarf thing off her, and instead tried to shift the thing aside. You definitely have wasted too much time on trying to take it off her. She couldn't have that much time left.

And the more you shift the fur apart, the more you discover that it wasn't a coat or a scarf at all. As you grabbed a handful, it became more and more apparent that they were more tail-like in nature. There was heat emanating off the tail, and a level of flexibility that suggests the presence of muscle inside, the same way a fox's tail would feel. But that fact isn't really registering in your brain at the moment.

That's because you finally managed to force a gap between the furs – no, are they probably tails? Regardless, you finally got a glimpse of your patient's face and body.

And gasped.

The first thing that you register is that she is, no matter how you look at it, _beautiful_. Despite the fast-drying clusters of blood splattered all over her face, her beautiful pearlescent skin glistened unnaturally, and there was a certain angular, sharp quality to her face that give her the appearance of what can only be described as royal. Despite how messy her hair is, none of the strands were tangled together – that is, even though she looks like a person that barely survived a ship in a storm, not a single strand of her hair became twisted and angular. Each strand retained a sort of glossy look about it, even though they seem to be going in all sorts of different directions at once.

There were parallel lines from the edges of her jaw angling towards her face, like whiskers from a fox, but they were smudged under scratches and several bruises. In fact, you manage to stop gawking at her – _oh gods, she's beautiful_ – face for a moment to pry open the fur-tail-thing that was covering the rest of her body to find that she has practically no stomach.

It also complicates things a little to find that she was wearing more red than anything else, because her blood and the red tattered garments makes it difficult to discern where the wound stops and where the clothing begins. Still though, it was far worse than what your little tourniquet was equipped to handle – you could see dark blue bruises and jagged cuts in areas where the tattered remains of her clothing couldn't cover.

You tried _very_ hard to not puke. You could see some of her _organs_. Beautiful is beautiful, but you never really signed up for this gore stuff, and… argh…

A feeling as if your stomach was crawling your way up your mouth passed, and you felt something very warm and sticky crawl out of your mouth. Your hand feels like it was dipped in acid, and your throat burns, but none of the vomit made it on top of your patient, so you sigh in relief. At least, you tried to. You feel so light-headed that you probably just vomited a little bit more on the floor.

It surprised you that you were relatively calm, and judging by your thought processes, slightly snarky, but you suppose that for some people, the panic settles in later, and you resort to being numb first.

Well, it can't be helped, could it? You're gonna have to resort to doing _that_.

You quickly run over to one of your shelves and took out _The Codex of Reginald Ashram, _all two thousand pages of it, and cursed very loudly as your still-disoriented body – first from sleep, now from panic – dropped it on your foot.

"FEAAAAAAARGH."

That's going to hurt for days, you thought angrily, but the pain was muted. Truly, the human body can choose to ignore practically everything. You flip the book open on the floor and found the spell for healing.

As a summoner-in-training, you could at least do a basic, level one spell.

But without the energy of the institute to back up your heal, you're going to need…

Oh, who gives a fuck. Lives are in _danger_ here. Which very well could deserve the plural form that you gave it, because if you mess up _this_ next spell…

You breathe in, and close your eyes. There was darkness.

A green light erupted into existence in the darkness. It was a tiny speck, more or less a firefly hovering in the abyss, but then a second one blinked into existence.

Then four.

Then eight, sixty-four, hundreds, more than you can count – but it never reached the thousands. This is because you were looking at the life energies of living things, the part that made them tick and move. You saw yourself, a tiny dot next to an enormous green star, and you realize with a shock that it was the woman's life force. It was massive, as if it was an essence of multiple living things.

It was also draining out quickly. As you concentrate to find more life force, you saw its size diminish by half, and then even _that_ halved itself. She was bleeding out of life, quickly.

So you concentrated. A knot formed on your head.

God, you'd _better_ not fuck this up.

Suddenly, all the other small green dots of life vanished – no, not vanished. Rather, they blurred towards your current location, each becoming a streak of green. Leaves withered. Grass simply vanished without a trace. Insects just curled up and died.

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry…_

You opened your eyes.

Green light swirled, no, _sloshed_ between your palms. It grew brightly, vividly, and you slam it down on the chest of the most beautiful woman you've ever seen –

Then the world went black for you.

* * *

The first thing that you thought about when waking up is that you were grateful that you managed to not die. You always had problems with the targeting bit – which bit of life force to take out, from where, and everything else, and you always seem to bite out a lot more from yourself than from anywhere else. To put it simply:

You want to feel your arms, but they're more or less dead, and so is your legs, because there's simply no more life energy in them.

The second thing that you thought about was about how soft your pillow is. And warm. And… how… dynamic it is?

Are pillows meant to go up and down like this?

And now that you think about it, while you can't really feel your arms or your legs, you know that your body is, in somewhat of an upright position. You can also feel, in a pins-and-needles kinds of way, that your legs are somewhere folded up underneath your buttocks.

You open your eyes, or tried to. But all you're seeing is darkness.

You were looking at hair. Not your hair. Your hair isn't this long, isn't this glossy-smooth, and importantly, doesn't _smell_ this nice. Oh, sure, it belonged to a woman that just dragged herself through an entire forest, probably crossing paths with more than one excrement, piss, goo, and just general slime-ooze things that you don't really have words for, but you can't really smell that. All you smell is the scen-

Wait another minute. Woman?

With great force of will you _forced_ your hands out of their numb paralysis and wiped your face of all the hair strands. You stare down the remains of a ripped _kimono_ – that is, an old Ionian dress – and looked at a pair of beautiful legs, both inert and unmoving. You could see slender thighs, and a perfectly sculpted stomach – not anorexic, not plump, but achieving a perfect balance between fat and muscle and slenderness that most women would have murdered for. You stare at it for a while, trying not to drool, but your lack of energy meant that you did anyways.

The offending liquid travelled down between two mounds of fles-

_You're lying down on her breasts._

You automatically cringe, but it appears that the divine slap of retribution would be withheld, mainly due to the fact that your patient is still unconscious. You _want_ to move away from her breasts, for the sake of politeness, decency, and the fact that someone would probably be along soon to investigate and _then _he'd be in deep shit and deep rumor.

But hey. It's soft, it's warm, and it's many billion times better than what you imagine breasts to have been.

So you fake your exhaustion for a few more minutes. Just a few more minutes.

Then, reluctantly, you slide off her, and you fell asleep – no, fainted - on the floor. The unused bandage became your pillow.

* * *

The little vixen smiled. What a cute little boy, she thought faintly.

He also saved my life. And it's not like _I _mind… well… that.

Then, due to exhaustion, she, too, fainted.

* * *

You wake up with a crystal clear mind. It's always like this, after you faint – you wake up knowing _exactly_ when you fell asleep, and then wake up with a pounding headache – and yet, your mind goes hyperactive. Absorbing all the details that you missed. You're really not sure why, it just happened.

And what it absorbed was this:

It was night already. There goes your lunch and your breakfast, although, to be fair, you really couldn't do much to make it at the moment. That's because your room is a mess. Tree roots were growing out of your bookshelves and wooden kitchen counters, and some of the books fell over. The apples appears to be growing roots as well, and your sofa –

Giant-sized moths. Again.

You really should work on your targeting.

Whatever. You'll clear that later in the morning.

Right now, you're more concerned about your sleeping patient, but you don't really feel like moving from your sitting position. It's very comfortable.

_She was dying_.

That was what jolted you into full remembrance. You stood up in a rush and –

Found a beautiful girl lying down, very nearly naked, on your bed.

You can't really blame her for being naked. She seemed like she's been through hell. Despite the absence of a gaping, gigantic wound, your spell did not fix the various cuts and bruises that she suffered throughout her entire skin. Thankfully most appear to be surface wounds and superficial, and most have already formed scabs over the wounds. However, she'll be covered in that for several weeks. Her face when you found her – _no, don't get distracted by her beauty_ – okay, so her face when you found her was a rictus of pain. Now, it was the face of a sleeping lady, if that lady happened to be a goddess, and that goddess happened to have fox ears.

You touched them experimentally, and she twitched in her sleep. Strange, but not as strange as the other part of her body.

The strange part was, of course, her nine tails. Snow-white is the wrong color – perhaps a little bit more towards gray – but it was still a pure color, primal in its purity. It was as if the tails themselves have spirit inside of them, a life-force that you were unaware of. Was it what was keeping her alive?

You've heard the tales, of course. A beautiful fox-girl that was roaming Demacia, and seducing men left and right and draining them of their life-force. It could explain why she was being chased. It could explain why she had nine, extremely beautiful and… okay, you touched a tail. It was cold, but it was fluffy, and felt like touching fur in cold weather: freezing with a hint of warmth in it.

Wait a minute.

Hurriedly, you touch yourself, and realize that you feel like you're _freezing_. You glanced at her.

God, she could be getting hypothermia right now.

You drew the covers over her and hurriedly found some clothes, because you haven't been in a shirt since yesterday morning. Just as you drew the covers over her, you gently stopped and hesitated.

Exactly _how_ much trouble would you get into when you hide a clearly marked-for-death fox-girl? You don't really know, but you are an HONORABLE summoner-in-training and you would be damned if you leave a girl to die, past murders or not.

So you leave to buy yourself some _very_ late lunch. You'll deal with the goddamn living living room later.

* * *

Walking towards town on an empty stomach was a horrible idea, but it was an even worse one to leave a girl half-naked in a chilly night when she may or may not be terminally ill. Besides, at least you got some food there. You hoped that you got the right sizes for her.

Girls can get _very_ stroppy with you if you buy them too big OR too small.

You also bought an extra blanket. Two of them, in fact. You need one for you, and you also need one more just in case she gets cold, although considering all of the fur on her, she shouldn't really have problems with that. With high spirits, you march on home.

Next thing that you do, as soon as you get home, is to reach into your shopping bag and pick out some Piltoverf Soup. It's apparently a thing in Piltover, where you simply boil water and pour the contents of the packet into a bowl, then add the water to make instant, warm, delicious –

Soup.

Not sure _what_ kind of soup, though. This one says tomato.

Whatever. You're pretty sure that she needs food, warm food at that, and since you totally fucked up the life distribution process in your spell, your entire kitchen became unusable. At least her major wounds are gone. To be honest, that was the first time a heal spell went so well. Must be that life-and-death thing settling in.

You knock on your front door, out of principle, before entering your own house.

Now that you thought about it, your – at least, your _rented_ – house is actually pretty small. It's literally a living room with a kitchen in the back and a bed on the side. A bookshelf sits opposite of the kitchen, and it's filled with summoning books, spells, books about past summoners, about the legendary heroes of Runeterra…

Well, that's pretty much it. It's a temporary residence, after all.

Your bed is going to be a problem though. Sleeping on the floor was _very_ uncomfortable, fainting or not, and there's no way you're bunking next to girl, a sick one at that –

_No matter how sexy and beautiful she is_ –

Besides, it's really, really disrespectful. Maybe. What do you know? You're 17 and you're more or less the type that studies all day to become a summoner. Do girls do that? People keep asking you out, but you've always turned them down, because honestly, there's no way in seven hells you're going to be good enough for them. You're clumsy, dumb, and – well, generally living trash, aren't you? Look at your living room. That was just from one spell.

Sighing – because really, there's no way you're going to be able to work with your living room kitchen thing, because it is now, in fact, living, due to the fallout and bad accuracy when you cast that heal spell, you set to work on boiling water with magic. Then stopped. That would probably cause the rest of the house to go on fire.

You instead cut off some of the sprawling roots and built a small fire outside of your house. The wind was chilly, and you hope that the insulation that the house naturally provides would stop the girl from catching a cold.

It was really hard to keep your mind from not straying to the girl, and the fact that she is your guest is only half of the reason why. You suspect that this is what a 'crush' feels like.

Whatever. Feelings aside, you have to make sure that she's healthy enough to do… well…

You don't really know what she's up to. She could be running from authorities, and she could have been on the run from murders, like the rumors say, and who knows – maybe you're the one about to get murdered. But those kinds of thoughts, you reflect, ultimately don't exist in your mind, because this is your patient – your guest – well, whatever you call her exactly. She is under _your_ custody and fugitive or not you're damn sure making sure that she'll come out of it alive.

You thought all of that as you were making the fire. Then, you took out a small tripod – standard summoning stuff – and boiled water atop it. That should take around fifteen minutes, considering the amount of water that you put in.

You then proceed inside, and hope that the wind wouldn't blow the fire the wrong way, or extinguish it, or make the water topple over, and then you rushed out and took some precautions, like stabilizing the tripod with rocks and books and stuff, before you went back inside.

Inside, you took out the clothes that you got for your patient. The vendor called it a _hanbok_, another ancient Ionian clothing, except that this one was a bit more… modernized. Eh, what can you say? Your patient does appear to be Ionian, after all. Might as well get her themed clothing.

The fact that your strong and very vivid imagination said that she would look goddamn amazing in it has nothing to do with it.

You also got her a jacket, which is standard wear, and some long pants. You don't have long pants on you, and it was always a good idea to cover her le- Wait, she didn't have anything covering her legs, except for perhaps your blanket. Damn, she's definitely going to catch a cold like that.

Moving swiftly, you positioned yourself sitting next to her head, and gently moved her into a sitting position. This, however, meant that you had to touch her back, which is now completely exposed.

You've honestly never felt skin this smooth. And yet, it was also slightly bumpy and resistant to the touch – it was probably due to her having goosebumps from the cold, and, of course, the bruises that she had.

You gulp. You move your other hand to her stomach. Then, slowly, slowly, you propped her up, letting most of… well… most of the rags that she had left covering her body fall. This way, you wouldn't be tempted. No, you wouldn't be tempted at all.

_You had this brief urge to just flip to her front and just take a peek. A primal, sudden and spontaneous urge, to just take a look –_

That spasm passed. God, it's like one of those times when you stand on the edge of a cliff, and you get that urge to just jump down. And a lot of your body, mainly the area right between your thighs, really wants to see, and were getting _really really antsy and _

PLEASE get this over with, you pray.

You close your eyes, and took a normal shirt – your shirt, a clean, white, all-purpose shirt, and, _without opening your eyes OR facing the general direction of her body_, you grabbed her wrist and shoved it into the sleeve. You did the same with the other one, keenly aware of how smooth the skin of her back was against the fabric of your shirt. Sweat dripping down your face, you gently angled her head, taking great care to make sure that her head goes through the somewhat tight opening of the shirt in a gentle manner. But in doing so, you are able to see –

Her sideboobs.

They were every bit as smooth and round as he expected them to be, except for the slight scars, but the _imperfection is making this so hot. Why are you such a teenage boy. Why hormones. You hate them. You hate them so SO very much. You really don't want to notice how slender her arms were, even though there were strength in them, a kind of musculature that only a goddess would have. You didn't want to notice the way her waist came together to a perfect hourglass, completely proportional, adorned with soft skin, and even the way that the scars and bruises covered her only served to compliment, not tarnish… No, you have to stop-_

_Get this done, now, now, now-_

_NOT FAST ENOUGH, CMON._

You never before believed in cliché statements such as "every passing second is like an hour" or similar, but that's probably because you've never been in a situation where you mind and body actively wants to make every single second eternal. It's the hormones, probably. It's like your body is fighting to keep your arms slowed, to not push her head through, to lengthen the moment that you can stare at her scarred yet beautiful skin. And the more you do, the less you can resist the urge to grab her.

But there was an inner strength, an iron will that prevented you from doing so.

Because it was the discipline and honor of a young summoner.

You forced her head through the shirt, and then yanked the shirt to cover her chest and the rest of her body, then sighed in relief. As for her pants, you figured that the covers will have to suffice. There is no way you're going to resist the temptation from _those_.

Oh god, oh god, oh god…

Breathing heavily in relief, you slide down, away from your bed, and went away to your bathroom.

When you were done with your business of relieving, well, we'll just say, things –

Your patient still isn't awake. At least the soup is cooked, though. You rushed outside to get the soup, and then went back in. Luckily enough, during the entire time, the soup wasn't burnt or overcooked or was eaten by wild animals attracted by the scent.

You sit cautiously next to her, drawing up a chair (but first clearing it of its random growths of tree roots ) next to the bed. Because somehow, her sleeping face combined with how… _tight_… your shirt is against her chest, makes you _extremely_ careful with being near her for the next… say, entire twenty-four hours.

Is your heart supposed to be thumping this hard?

You don't really know.

* * *

From here on, I'd like you people to provide the input. Where do I continue? What will we do with our sick, lovely vixen? Provide scenarios and stuff for me to continue with, please. I'll probably 'end' the fic, but that's no reason to stop suggesting, because I'm just going to write short section after section of short, fluffy drabbly things and insert them in between. I've provided the setting -

Now, since it's, well, YOU, you're going to decide the story.

Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

Good news! You don't have to slag through so many words like last chapter now!

Also, the other news is that the chapters WILL get shorter and shorter as Ahri nears waking up. This is so that I can focus on the one-shot nature of the fic, which really is drabbles about a sick Ahri and a caring summoner, which is you. I'm actually going to end the fic early, and then take requests of short one-shot drabbles that I'll fit in between the fic ending and the Ahri waking up.

Some of you have mentioned that this should tie into Ahri's backstory, and I wish you weren't so perceptive of my future plans. :3

Also I won't be uploading next month (read: November) due to Nanowrimo.

Okay now go enjoy.

You fox-loving beauties.

* * *

Okay, so you really messed up _this _time.

You forgot to feed her the soup. You stare at it mournfully, the now-freezing bowl sitting rebelliously in the corner of the now-rootless kitchen counter. It seemed to steam a little now and then, little wisps erupting from the bowl like some sort of spirit reminding you that you are a forgetful idiot, and that you're going to have to somehow feed an unconscious woman something that isn't soup.

You could always cook another one, you suppose, but then you'd have to trudge all the way back to town, because you're an idiot and you didn't think to buy more than one.

And the whole reason you forgot?

You were so busy cleaning up the fallout from your massively failed heal spell that you forgot to tend to your guest – patient –something, whatever, and simply collapsed on the floor, exhausted from pruning all the rampant wild growth tree roots. There, you realized exactly how tired your limbs and arms were, what with running to town and giving her clothes and pruning the iron-fused tree roots (because when heal spells go astray, they go astray with spectacularly bad results) and now you're just so tired that you couldn't think straight.

The fox-lady is occupying most of your mind at the moment, and thoughts of any other ladies, girls, women, were simply clouded by her form and face. You suspect in your young self that this is what a crush felt like, because it felt exactly like this when you saw this country's princess (well, the way she held herself and the way giant bulky warriors stand by her, you _assumed_ that she was a princess) walk by, with her bright smiling face and glossy, beautiful blonde hair.

The way that the light bounced off her form was quite exquisite.

Okay, so you're a sucker for pretty girls then. That bit's fine, after all, aren't all young men a sucker for pretty girls?

The not-fine bit is the bit where her face is starting to morph into that of your fox-girl patient.

This is strange, this is _really_ strange, and you're trying to think but you can't because cutting tree roots are hard enough, but working enough magic to reverse the growth and kill your furniture from the inside so that they become, you know, furniture again, now _that's_ completely exhausting and strains your already exhausted mind.

The summary is, you're really tired, you've forgot to feed your guest, and then you suspect her of working some sort of magic on you. Wow, you're such a douchebag to a dying, very pretty girl.

But this IS Valoran. If such a unique, nigh-unheard of creature – no, girl, that is – if such a unique girl were to suddenly pop up in front of your doorway, it would be _very_ strange if some sort of magic isn't involved. And this infatuation – and, just barely three hours after you've 'relieved' yourself, this hard-on – is very suspicious, as well.

You grab your basic summoning kit.

You're not going to summon anything. That's far beyond the capabilities of a young novice such as yourself. If you were that stuck-up prodigy Lee Sin, then maybe you'd try, but one of these days he's going to kill himself summoning things that are far beyond his current level. Instead, you grabbed a Magyk Wand.

To be perfectly clear, wands have been so far out of fashion that the only existing ones that can actually cast any sort of magic can only be found in the ancient ruins of the Shadow Isles. No wizard, magician, witch, even young girls claiming to be magical moon-warriors, _no one_, would be caught dead waving a magic wand and casting spells. They'd rather ignite themselves to death.

No, this is different. This wand acts as a kind of spoon.

There's a reason that, given the competitive nature of the League, that individual summoners – the younger ones, at any rate – don't try to blow each other up, at least not using magic. This is because magic can easily, _very_ easily, be traced. It is as if each personal summoner has his own magical fingerprint that, while can be replicated, would be _much_ too difficult of a hassle due to all the micro-magic that composed their spells. It would take someone like the Head Summoner or something to actually imitate someone's basic ignite spell, much less the much more powerful and complex spells like Teleportation and Spontaneous Combustion.

This wand is given to each summoner, especially the novice ones, to see which ones were dumb enough to cast spells at each other. They can scoop up residual magic – or even existing ones – and allows the summoner, with many complex vials and funny looking paraphernalia, and with actually very simple procedures, to determine to which summoner the offending spell actually originated from. But you don't need to find out _where _it's coming from. You just need to find out if it's there at all.

First though, you wave around the wand wildly like a madman. Green mist suddenly cottoned around your wand, and you're holding what might as well be mint candy in your right hand. God damn, did you fuck your heal spell up _that _bad that there's _this_ much magical residue?

You sigh. God, you'll never be an official summoner at this rate.

You then moved towards your sleeping patient, who you've been trying to avoid looking at for the past few hours. You feel something wriggle in your pants when you look at her, and gulp.

This can't be natural. You refuse that you go into this kind of trance every time you look at a pretty girl.

You wave your wand.

Slowly, a small, hazy pink mist, so thin that it might have been a veil, began to cluster around your wand. It was there, but the same way mosquitoes and gnat swarms exist: you'd have to stare at it, to actually focus at it, before it began to look… real. And inside, tiny, barely visible silver-brown flashes of lightning flashed, and might have been a stark contrast to all the pink mist if it weren't so… tiny.

As it was, you don't really have the knowledge required to determine what _kind _of spell that was. But there was no doubt that a spell of sorts, not of your magical signature – the tiny lightning made that clear – and above all, far more complex than anything that you can currently cast right now.

It's probably a charming spell of sorts, you thought to yourself. So your incessant obsession with the girl has some logical roots after all, and you sigh in relief.

You stare at her again. Even though you know that it's a spell, and might have been a façade, you can't help but think that she's still so very… beautiful. You should throw her out at this point, probably. You can't guarantee your own safety if you keep meddling in not just a fugitive magical girl. Who knows? It could be a ruse of hers to get you to help her for, well, let's face it – absolutely nothing!

But you can't think that way. You know where that kind of thinking goes – the kind of thinking where you help purely yourself and nobody else. You'll start losing trust in someone you're helping, and from there, you'll start to lose faith in society, in life, and everything becomes bleak and grim and depressing. It's, after all, what drove you away from home. And if you'll lose trust in someone because of a good reason, you'll do it for a bad reason. Even though this girl is suspicious, magical-based and potentially a crafty, murderous killer, you'll trust in the fact that she nearly died, and the fact that her distress is genuine.

You can't be logical about trust. It might not be the smart thing to do, but somewhere in your rugged heart, you feel like it's the right thing to do.

Sighing, you walk off to make another bowl of soup and see if you can't make her drink it a little bit.

And then you started walking to the bathroom again, for some other personal 'relief'. Trust or no, this magical stupid charm thing needs to go the fuck right off.

* * *

There's some difficulty in being a nurse or a doctor, especially if the patient is unconscious, you think.

First of all, there's already soup between her cleavage. That took a couple of more trips to the bathroom to manage, because you keep all your cloth there – it doubles as a storage room for your cloth material. And wiping it off her cleavage nearly drove you to a nervous breakdown. It was a good thing you've reached your 'limit' for the day.

Second of all, the little soup that you actually did manage to get inside her mouth usually gets dribbled out.

How the heck do you feed unconscious people, anyways?

Sighing, you place the bowl by the table.

You've actually set up a small workshop of sorts next to the bed. Wait, that's not true. It's more that you shoved the bed towards the direction of the kitchen table, and made it so that you can sit down next to her, in case she stirs, wakes up, or shows signs of life. It's been an entire day, but since her injuries were so severe when you saw her, you doubt that she's going to wake up anytime soon. Probably another two days. Then you really should call a professional doctor, fugitive or no.

You proceed to your own work. Patient or no, you still have homework. It sucks, and to be honest, you've been sort of using her as an 'excuse' to not tend to your homework, but you can't keep running away from the inevitable doom of the deadline. You might as well be trying to dodge the ground when you fall.

"_Over time, certain runes may begin to degrade in quality… by fusing five of the same kind together, it can create a higher quality… fusing two would result in one of the same grade…" _you mutter. And you had to memorize what types of runes do what. And what they're composed of. And…

And so many things.

God you hate homework.

"_So many people… a certain number of champions… naturally, some champions will… offer themselves up… come from all sorts of places, outlaw or no-"_

Hm.

You turn to look at your patient, whom is now gently breathing in and out in an audible manner, just on the edge of snoring.

Oh well, you think to yourself.

You carried on studying then.

It was around 3 AM, and around a day after you've rescued your patient. You were drooling, half-asleep among piles of goddamned homework when you heard a moan.

You woke drowsily. It was, as mentioned so many times before, a very tiring day. Your head feels flat. Your right arm, the one your slept on, was numb, and only the sensation of wet cheeks and wet hair managed to wake you up (you drool when you sleep, you find out). You were so sleepy that you nearly fell asleep again.

Then she moaned again, softly this time. _That _jarred you awake.

Afterwards, you wouldn't be able to describe the moan, much less replicate it, but it made a sound, that made your lips seem clumsy and foolish, that goes like a much higher-pitched version of "_nnnnn"._ Hearing it was enough to trigger the midnight wood, but it also meant that something is wrong with your patient. You go to check on her immediately afterwards, and found out from touching her skin and her lightly troubled – like a person caught in an uncomfortable, suffocating but not necessarily terrifying nightmare – visage, that she had a fever.

You don't have the first clue on _how_ she got it. And getting someone to swallow the medicine while unconscious…

Well, you're going to have to cure her the regular way, aren't you? Lots of sleep, warm stuff kept near her, and keeping her temperature up, that kind of thing…

It'll be a lot simpler and faster if she'd just not… be unconscious, but you're too scared of trying to rouse her, and just touching her is already a great mental strain on your brain. You don't just _touch_ a beauty like this.

Stupid auto-charm or not, you don't simply touch a beauty like her.

You dragged a spare blanket out of the laundry bin – not like you're using the bed anyways, not right now, hah – and draped it over her. Then, deciding that it wasn't enough – because you can still clearly see _some_ of her curves, which would keep driving you and your young, hormonal, overactive imagination crazy – you also laid down some jackets and random assortments of pants and other warm clothing that you can obtain.

She should be burning at this point, and she's already hot. Not just with the fever.

Heh.

Heheh.

God, you are _so_ tired at this point. You don't know what to do. You could sleep on the floor maybe? That sounds like a bad idea. Not that you have a choice.

Your body started throbbing, as well.

It may have been the exhaustion of staying up late, the exhaustion of all the homework, from all the cleaning up that you had to do, from taking care of your patient and the mental stress of dealing with who was a naked, beautiful lady, but your mind just snapped for a moment there. You entertain all sorts of delusions. The air tasted purple. The ground was yellow, even though you're not on ground. And you were laughing.

God you needed to relax. You were so stressed, you started laughing because you were helping someone.

Still giggling, your consciousness faded on the floor.

* * *

You came to with a start. For starters, the side of your head _hurts_. The entire left side is throbbing, and your senses told your brain that your ear is flat. A _flat_ sensation, so to speak, is engulfing the entirety of the left side of your head. You can't really put it into words. It's the knowledge that the entirety of your left head feels completely flush with, say, a smooth floor.

With a second jolt, you realized that your entire body is practically numb. Pins and needles engulfed your arms and legs. You also realized that you've spent the night on the floor.

Full confirmation emerged around three seconds later, when you flopped to the right and tried to raise yourself to stand. You couldn't, because of how numb your arms are. They literally could not support your own weight – every time you try, it would just fold under its own weight and you would flop to the floor again.

Okay, maybe you'd actually be able to get up if you actually put an effort into getting up, but you're just really lazy and above all, still heavy-headed and tired. You want more sleep. On a damn bed.

You tried to glare somewhat resentfully at your bed, specifically, its inhabitant, but the lingering infatuation that you have with her combined with how heavy your head is made the glare a somewhat futile effort.

You're gonna need a mattress. A proper one. You could, you suppose, buy one from town, but you're trying to save up money – after all, allowances only came once a month, and this IS the end of the month…

It's not like you ever needed a second mattress anyways.

But maybe you can make your own mattress?

It's patchwork at best, and to be honest, you can't bear to think about what it is as its worst, not for the sake of your poor backside and side of your head. The sensation of sleeping on a hard wooden floor is something that someone needs to experience on their own. You can't describe it. It's just one of those things that you have to feel with your body to feel exactly how discomforting it is to have your entire body lie on something that actively pushes against it instead of forming around it, like a mattress would…

For around eight hours.

You started dragging out some spare blankets as the base, and then added a couple of more as an afterthought. Then you realized that it wouldn't work, because your blankets aren't as thick as you need a comfortable bed to be. So you tried to stack pillows in a square-ish shape instead, and then ran out of pillows before you can complete a rectangle large enough to support your body shape. To compensate for that, you folded the spare blankets in such a manner to form a pillow-ish shape to fill in the gaps.

Okay, now you have a bed-like shape.

Now all you need to do is to bind it together?

Distasteful as they were, the Zauns did create the Binder. With their extreme distaste of Zaun, Noxus, and anything that isn't generally themselves, the Demacians naturally seized shipments of the extremely useful Binder and relabeled it as Tape. You question the legality of it every day, and still buy it anyways. It's so handy when it comes to binding things together, like binding your paper to your walls so you can save space on your table while still looking at all the important graphs and stuff.

It's not really going to help you in this situation, though. You might need rope? Nah, that'll just make the bed uncomfortable to sleep on. Maybe if you use a metal base and – you don't even have a metal base, do you.

You could just try sleeping on it immediately, said your body. Get the rest that you and I both desperately need.

Your common sense said that given your tendencies to roll around in the bed, you're going to end up sleeping on the floor anyways.

Rope it is.

Some fifteen minutes later, you lie on a bed criss-crossed with rope. Lying on it was very uncomfortable, so you covered all the rope with a few layers of your last few blankets, and you finally managed to make the bed somewhat sleepable in.

Then the exhaustion took over.

* * *

You wake up feeling… not well rested. Still tired, but the kind of tired that you get from sleeping at three in the morning and waking up at eleven. The 'normal' kind of tired.

So at least your makeshift mattress sort of worked. On the other hand, your clock says that it IS three in the morning now, and your patient is…

Wasn't she having a fever beforehand?

You rushed over to her and crashed into your workshop, making paper fly. Luckily your ink is bottled, and knowing your clumsy hands, bottled with metal. It fell to the floor with a clang.

Gingerly, you touched her forehead, to find out that…

The fever neither intensified nor weakened. It simply remained static, the same as it was yesterday, and you sighed in relief. She's probably hungry, but given how little you can feed her at the moment…

Oh well. Not much to do then.

So you just sat on the edge of the bed and simply stared at her for a while.

There's still an irresistible charm to her, but put someone under the same charm for long enough and even the irresistible will one day become normal. You haven't quite reached that level yet, however, the strength of the spell has weakened on you enough for you to not go into a hormonal rage.

And now that the pink mist has diluted enough for you to actually look at her objectively…

She's odd, that's for sure. Her face isn't what you would call perfectly proportioned, but it gives her an exotic look that can only come from Ionia. High cheekbones, petite pointed chin, and large, rounded eyes. Also, the cheek markings are probably an unusual aspect of it. They were rough and feral, a far contrast to her… how would you say this… princess-like face.

You can't really call it anything else. It was as if she was of high blood, descended from a king or a noble or something, because it was a baby-smooth pearly skin that haven't seen a single day of work. And on them, feral markings, arranged like the whiskers of a cat or a… fox… and even then, they were far more savage and nature-like compared to its previous appearance of being soft and demure, almost ceramic in its beauty.

And she had the prettiest eyelashes, too. Delicate and soft, just like the soft fuzz of fur surrounding her fox ears. And you found that with the charm gone, they're still… hmm. You wouldn't say cute. Just endearing, somehow. Like a key to a lock, something that simply fits into her body, just like the tails. She wore it like a woman would normally wear clothes. The face supports it. The body supports it. Her curves support it, although you blush a little whenever your eyes strayed there.

And somehow, you found that this incarnation is far more beautiful than her charmed-up appearance. That was uncontrollable lust. But looking at her vulnerable form…

There's a genuine desire to protect something so beautiful.

It's a purer form of crush, you suppose, although it could always be the residual charm spell that's been left over. After all, there's no way the entire spell dissipated already.

Oh well.

You wanted to stay and share her company for a little bit longer, but you realize that the situation, and especially your inner thoughts, your inner narrative, that is, were turning into the thoughts of a stalker. Besides, you have to fix yourself a meal for the evening, maybe go to town and buy some more soup, because you should feed her _something_, after all. Heck, maybe you can buy something to make your makeshift mattress more comfortable.

So you take one last longing look at her beautiful face and form, and her soft golden eyes, and he-

Wait.

The soft golden eyes blinked. Then everything about her that you thought of just now vanished, only to be replaced with an enormous charm.

It was like the world folded into her. The affection that you had, tripled, no, quadrupled, and suddenly your chest became intensely tight, your breathing labored. Every single one of your muscles seized, because your brain was sending adrenaline through every vein in your body – only that it wasn't adrenaline, was it, because this wasn't flight or fight, you just want to tackle her with your body and never let go… That feeling when everything in the world went soft and pink and at the same time sharp-edged and intense, so intense, when you can literally feel the air molecules brush at your skin and –

The yellow eyes, presumably out of exhaustion, closed again.

Her hands went limp. You didn't even notice that they were clenched or tense to begin with. Speaking of hands, you didn't know that your own hands were clenched as well. It was as if every single molecule of your body had gone on alert mode just a second ago, and you didn't realize it.

But that… that was intense.

Too intense.

You're going to have to learn some sort of shield to this spell, before she wakes up.

_And you should probably be quick about it._

* * *

THAT'S ALL THERE IS FOLKS

IT'S NANOWRIMO

YOU WON'T SEE AN UPDATE FOR THE NEXT MONTH BECAUSE I'LL BE WRITING 50,000 WORDS FOR NOVEMBER

BOOOY OH BOOOY I DON'T THINK I CAN DO THIS BUT PLEASE

WISH

ME

LUCK

EDIT: I'M DONE, NEW CHAPTER'S UP IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW. THANKS FOR STICKING THIS FAR - well, it's really only two chapters...


	3. Chapter 3

HAPPY NEW YEARS AT LEAST ITS NEW YEARS IN MY TIME HI OKOK BYE

HAVE THIS FIC I WROTE IT WITH BADNESS IM SORRY. I PLANNED IT FOR CHRISTMAS BUT CAN'T FINISH IT ITS HARD MKAY

OKAY SEE YOU LOVELY PEOPLE.

* * *

So it's been, like, what. Probably two hours.

And you know, most people don't learn spells in a mere two hours, but you kind of really need it. And even the learning process was very quickly becoming problematic for you.

It's not only the fact that learning high level spells are inherently difficult. It's also because of the fact that, well, you don't really have a sort of pressure bearing down upon you. Yeah, sure, you desperately need the spell to shield yourself from some sort of magical enchantment that's still permeating the room _at this very moment_. But you don't know when your patient is going to wake up and bring the charm to full power. So you don't really have the pressure of a deadline bearing down upon you.

Hey, don't judge yourself. No, stop doing that. Making blatantly illogical excuses is all part of the learning process. It's a level six spell that you're learning after all. And maybe they _did_ bump it down to a level two spell, but you see, aha, you never had formal training when it comes to practicing this spell, so –

You sigh and collapse on the ground. It's the natural pose of all despairing student and scholar.

It's the pose of utter defeat and exhaustion.

Even now, you can feel your patient waking up. There was a sort of difference in the breathing that you can hear from across beyond the walls of your bookshelves. Yes, your shack may only have a single room, but you've manage to barricade yourself by moving the heavy shelves into a sort of wall that divided the room into your bedroom and the kitchen. Unfortunately, it also meant covering most of the door, but you could deal with that.

What you can't deal with is your patient. Ever since her condition got better – ever since the first time you saw her open her beautiful yellow eyes, that is, the charm that surrounded her passively had grown even stronger. You used to be able to not stare at her drooling. Now, just to maintain your focus on other more important subjects, you had to block her view with a large amount of bookshelves.

The worst part is, a part of you _wanted_ to do that again. To stare at her for hours at end. To walk over to her bed and just ravish her there and then, and god knows, she'd probably want it. She's the kind of creature that's meant to seduce men, isn't she? Even her outfit –

You saw a flesh-colored blur travel past your eyes and into them, and you woke with a start from your daydreams. Your lower body parts may or may not be extremely aroused, as well. You sigh.

Whatever you do, you're not going to stoop to that level. No matter the enchantment and her fox ears, and the fact that she's clearly a magical being of a high level, she's a lady, and as much as you love her body, you're not even sure if you'd love _her_. That right there was your deal-sealer. You've been taught by your father the _second_ you first learnt of the word 'sex' and 'fuck' to never do it unless you really love the person, and that person loves you back.

It's a stupidly moral thing to believe in. It is, in fact, possibly the only reason why every other summoner gets invited to the parties that you don't get into. Of course, it might also be your lack of intellect. That might be it, also. The point is, you outright refuse to fall into temptation to go do _things_ with your patient…

Which brings back the spell problem.

The exact spell that you were trying to learn is called Cleanse. It's a spell normally used on champions when you summon them to solve political disputes via glorious battles on the fields of justice. Normally, the only effect that it had was to remove all debilitating effects on your partnered champion, or so you read. However, you have also read that the effect of summoner spells grows exponentially weaker the farther the caster was away from the target*. You'd read that a platinum-throned summoner once cast an ignite spell in the middle of a forest due to his debilitating fear of the dark. The fireball was reportedly seen all the way in Bandle City, nearly three thousand miles south.

Here, the spell should likely create a sort of shield to protect you from the debilitating effects of the charm and allow you to focus on your studies and chores and other things. More importantly, it would help you take care of your patient more easily. It was difficult enough to spoon soup into her unconscious mouth under the effect of the charms, but now that she's beginning to regain consciousness, you highly doubt that you can keep your cool while doing so. Lately, you've even been thinking of the word spooning more and how nice it would be to do with her.

It was the tails that snapped you out of the trance, strangely enough. It would be kind of difficult to spoon with a large amount of fur between your bodies, although it would probably be a strange experience.

You shake your head. You probably should really stop distracting yourself with needless thoughts like those. You *must* complete the cleanse spell. And to remind yourself why….

You take a deep breath. Gods, you really don't want to do this – or do you? Maybe you really do, after all. There's a part of your body that said that you should do it. Look at her. Glance at her beautiful form. Marvel at her curves and at her perfect face, and then touch it, admire it…

It's getting progressively harder to ignore these voices. They weren't even in your own mind's voice. It was a different kind of voice, a seductive, soft voice, which made your head go hazy pink and the world to feel warm and strangely uncomfortable.

Sighing, you try to return to the task at hand. But you couldn't. The distraction was too much.

No, no, you refuse to go wank off.

Now, you _could_ call for help, you suppose, but there's a sixth sense holding you back from getting help. You suspect that most males that would come across this lady would not be brought up to be even half as mannered as you are, and thus would attempt to rape her on the spot. In addition, the women half of society would scold you for the sorry state of the lady and the terrible clothing you put on her, _or_ stab her right on the spot out of jealousy. Maybe someone with magical inclinations would learn to recognize and resist the charm better.

You kind of wished that you had a better social life back at the summoner's school, but oh well.

You're going to try another thing, then.

It's makeshift, but it's probably the only talent that you have.

Ever since you were a small child, you have learnt to do things via overly analytical imitation. That means that you take a look at your father mowing the lawn, comes up with several hypotheses about how the lawn was mowed, why would he need to mow the lawn, why did he do the movements necessary to mow the lawn, and other such things.

It just so happens that one of your favorite champions was a fallen angel who learned how to shield spells.

It is by no means a cleanse spell, and you know that even attempting it could probably be disastrous. A champion's signature ability is often a unique spell in the sense that mere mortals like yourself could not even begin to try and replicate it. Or at least, so does the story go. In a more practical sense, yes, certain spellcasters have larger affinities towards a certain school of spellcasting, such as Lee Sin and his affinity towards summoning, but not copying spells from others is more of a matter of pride. They prefer to have an identity, a flash spell that the books would have to name after them, if they ever got there.

So in theory, despite Morgana being a dark angel from a different dimension that you'd never really bothered to look at, because, well, you never really got past the bare midriff and just-so-open cleavage – well, you should be able to replicate her spellshield.

It might work. In theory.

You take a deep breath, closed your eyes, and summon arcane energies and marshal it to your will. Visualizing a shield that surround you, you attempt to create a sphere around yourself, a sphere of selfishness that rejects everything else that isn't already in it. It would be a cage that would reject every magic other than its own. It should work, if only you could imagine it properly…

You open your eyes.

There was a hovering cage of yellowish snot. Your ingrained magic color was yellow, and you attempted to erect a black shield…

Oh dear…

Well, at least it appears to work, even though it looks like utter shit. You couldn't think of a more disgusting looking color. It was like vomit mixed with pus. Even looking at it made some internal part of his stomach shrivel and die.

You let the spell die. Let's do this scientifically, you thought to yourself.

We're going to test this one by one, you think. So first, we're going to let the spell fail…

You dropped your concentration, and the yellowish puke shield dropped. You now stand in the midst of a room filled with papers and books scattered all over the floor. There was a small slit in between the bookshelves – they lead to the part of the house that had the kitchen in it. It wasn't originally this way, you only had a single room to begin with, but with the damned patient regaining consciousness and her magic getting stronger, you had to create the second room just to resist your urges.

Honestly, it's not fair that you had run into the one magical fox that made your urges go insane. It's not fair for anyone, but it's not like you care. You just lost a lot of time that you could've done doing homework OR resting OR any other sort of enjoyable activities by having to tend to the girl. She'd better damn well be grateful.

You try _very_ hard to not think about the implications of the word _grateful_. You try to instead redirect the energy to recreating your spell.

Forming a similar frame around your mind, you attempt to create the spell again, and made a few changes to the framework, hopefully enough to remove the black colorings and make it a purely yellow shield –

Well, that didn't turn out so well. You let the spell fail, and returned to the original framework.

The original framework worked out fine, it seems. You can relax on that count, at least.

*Flash spells were practically teleport spells when outside of summoner's rift. And that's not even getting to the dirty little things summoners get to see with high level clairvoyance spells. It was said that Janna Windforce and Sona room had to be magic-proofed nearly ten times over. Pictures of their bodies still littered the underground market. As for Miss Sarah Fortune, well, _her_ pictures stopped circulating several years ago, partially because she never really cared about being seen in the nude in the first place. 'Makes it easier for all the bad men to find me,' she quipped once.

You return to making some lunch, because you were hungry from all the magical experimenting.

At the same time, however, you weren't so hungry, because your brain was awash with the happiness of triumph from creating your new creation. Not many summoners would be able to do this. Admittedly, that was because copying the spell of anyone else is considered poor taste, but you always preferred practicality over taste.

* * *

The sandwich that you ended up making was more or less two sloppy pieces of breads with mayonnaise and some ketchup on it. You're not really sure if you even put meat on it, and that should have disgusted you, but you're really past the point of caring. You tentatively put your lips to the sodden creation and found that it was pleasing to your delirious brain. You didn't want to look in the mirror. That might frighten the life out of you.

Let's review your life, shall we?

You were doing homework normally, until a point where a sexy fox-lady fell in front of your house, at which point you take her in and take care of her. At this point, her magical aura entranced you, and you had to resist your urges so hard that… well…

You sigh. No matter how you size it up, it doesn't make sense. It's the kind of things that only happen in bad stories…

And yet it does make sense, because it's happening right in front of you at the same time. It's a bad story because you're going through it. You're experiencing all the bad parts – the pain in your crotch, for starters, and all the exhaustion and delirium and the feeling of your head buzzing with magical formulae. Yes, the circumstances were bizarre and odd, perhaps, but given that life throws all sorts of strange things your way on a daily basis – like the existence of magic, for starters – it's not really all that bizarre.

God, you're trying to even _normalize_ your situation now.

You finish the soggy sandwich in a state of philosophical existential calm. Must be some really good mayonnaise you put on it.

Well, what do you do now? You could do your homework, and that's been pending for a while. You could try to rouse your patient and hope that the magical aura that appears to charm the people that stands around her don't fry your brains. You could try making another sandwich, because you were starving, and that's exactly what you decide to do. You can _never _go wrong with more food.

You put another layer of the philosophical mayonnaise and made sure to actually put the steak in.

Also, how did she come to be in such a state, anyways? Different scenarios begin to slowly pop up in your mind. She could have wandered too close to a group of large, angry, and most importantly, sexually frustrated men, and her mere presence could have triggered it. You highly doubt that it was the case, however, given how magically potent she is. You'd bet your entire university funds that she would have more tricks than simple charming seduction.

Speaking of charming seduction, could she have seduced the wrong person? You've already read a little on mind-altering spells, and they simply cloud your perception of the world and simulate the circumstances of anger. A rage spell would simply heighten your perception of things that makes you angry about a certain situation, it wouldn't work if the target was inherently (and completely) pacifistic. The same could be said of a char-

But the scenario didn't really work out either. Yes, she could have tried to seduce someone, but it's highly doubtful that anyone that wasn't a high-class magician would be able to resist her. It could be that a jealous wife sent soldiers, whom happened to be of the female persuasion, to chase her down for grievous adultery towards her husband or something like that, which might render them immune to charms. That wasn't how charms work, however. The real reason why most students study a great deal regarding mind control spells was, to be completely and utterly honest, the desire to marshal their own harem of hot ladies (or men) using said spells. It wasn't unheard of for female sorceresses to have their own female harem.

You're very sure that you've lost track of whatever you were thinking about originally, as you chomp down the last few bits of the existential mayonnaise in the soggy (but actually meaty) sandwich.

What now? You can't really eat anymore, not due to a lack of appetite but mostly due to a lack of food in the house. You could go buy more food. You could do homework.

You could see what your foxy, sexy patient is up to while sleeping.

You sigh. But you should really get to feeding her. It was around five hours since she last ate, after all. You didn't really feed her all that much.

You waved an arm, and a pot of water filled itself with water. Then you pointed at it languidly.

Around two minutes and a lot of floor-scrubbing and hasty attempts to save your homework later, you vaguely wondered how you managed to burn water. Just another skill to add to your list of special skills.

You sigh, and you made soup the traditional way, where you heat the water using traditional means and had to wait for an equivalent traditional long time.

You return to your patient.

She was still, as per usual, extremely, extremely beautiful. And you were the usual. Extremely, extremely, pressured by the urge to just take her in your arms. And then take her elsewhere. Depending on the context of 'take'.

Her pose had changed. She used to be sleeping face up, but now she had shifted to hug your bolster, laying down on the side of her body and subsequently drooling all over your bolster. It might look disgusting and sound disgusting, but the charm had you in its thralls, and you didn't think it looked so bad. After all, _you_ drool in your sleep, you'd be a massive hypocrite if you condemn others for drooling while you sleep. You kind of really wished that you were that bolster. She was cradling it so tenderly, even in her sleep. You wondered how it would have felt to be cradled so gently like that. Memories of touching her skin from two days ago resurfaced in a frightening rush of speed and collided with your imaginations of being cradled by your beautiful patient.

You try to clear your head, and failed completely. Instead, you dragged yourself into the other room as fast as you can, and then collapsed at the foot of the bookshelf.

Okay, okay, let's try and put that new spell to work, you thought.

"For the love of god, why does she have to be so beautiful," you mutter. It was a clumsy line, clunky, and completley but what else are you supposed to say?

You close your eyes and put up the spell array. The now more familiar yellow-black puke shield arced over your head.

You walked into the room, and the thoughts of sexual interaction, while still there, was noticeably less powerful. They weren't overpowering the rest of your thoughts, such as those for the well-being of your patient. Well, it's not like you should worry about it, at the time being.

At the moment, her breathing had stabilized, and she no longer had a fever. You take that as a good sign. A very good sign. You returned to the other room and fetched the bowl of soup, and then tentatively dipped a spoon into the bowl, and held it up to her open mouth. You trickled it in, making very sure that she wouldn't choke on it from the angle that you held her head at. You marveled at the efficiency of the Black Shield replica. At this point, you would probably went ahead and kiss the open mouth under the influence of the unconscious charm. Right now, the base desire was still, as always, existent, but it was a more normal base desire. It was like holding a beautiful woman's head and having the stray thought of kissing her, or being on the edge of a cliff and having the stray thought of jumping off.

She dribbled out most of the soup, but you note that it looked as if she swallowed a little bit of it. Encouraged, you trickle a little bit more of it into her mouth.

She flickered, opened her eyes, and swallowed the rest of the soup, and nearly the spoon in the process. It clattered out of your shocked hand.

There was an oppressive feeling of _gravitation_ for a moment. For a short moment, the world appeared to distort towards her, and you kept your wits about you just for this moment. It was as if there was a sudden natural urge to fling yourself – not to mention everything else – towards the beautiful amber pool that was her eyes. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. It was terrifying, at least to the parts of your mind that was still thinking –

Then your black and yellow shield simply shattered.

The oppressive gravitation disappeared.

You went down to one knee. This was normal, wasn't it? Kneeling is common practice to queens, and the girl in front of you was obviously a queen. And not just any normal queen. She was beautiful. You're not even looking at her, out of fear that she might smite you due to showing disrespect, but you could picture her in your mind's eye, a raven-haired ivory beauty of perfect proportions, lying on her sides, exposing perfectly smooth legs and a hand lying teasingly near her stomach, while the other would support her weight.

There was a voice that cut through the haze. "I'm not dead," it muttered in disbelief. It was a clear, flute-like voice, padded with silk and pillows and lulls anyone that heard it into a sense of comfort. Without realizing it, you smiled the dopiest smile of your life.

There was a slight rustling. The figure turned to you. "Did you save me?" it asked, in the sweetest voice you've ever heard possible.

Unconsciously, you nodded.

There was a very soft hand on your head, and it was patting your head.

It pat your head lightly at first, like a master would reward a pet. You purr and nuzzle against it.

That was what was the center of your brain was registering. Elsewhere, somewhere near the far edges, just on the edge of consciousness, alarm bells were ringing.

The hands that was supporting your weight began to sink. Your legs, folded up underneath your body, began to tremble some more, and caved. The energy that was keeping your body upright weakened slightly, then bolstered, as you try to nuzzle against the hand that was petting you even more. You try to open your eyes, only to realize that you can't. This was happening around the edges of your consciousness.

Most of your brain was really, really caught up in the softness of her pats and the smooth texture of her fingers ruffling her hair.

Your vision was black, although you didn't really need vision to get patted by your beautiful mistress, so you didn't exactly minded it. After all, this way, it's easier to imagine her smiling face when you're looking at the inside of your eyelids –

The last vestiges of strength left your body, and you collapse on the floor, gasping and spluttering. The world felt heavier, as if you were swimming in molten lead – yes, molten, you felt a strange heat rise up throughout your body. You open your eyes, although even that took a lot out of you.

There was no longer a charming aura around the fox-lady. She was completely normal – well, still extremely pretty, but no longer so supernaturally charming, instead coming off as 'just' a beautiful ionian lady whom happened to have fox-ears and nine, lustrous tails, which pointed at him menacingly. The lady herself was supporting herself on your former bed, on your knees just like you are. Most strikingly, her yellow eyes never left yours. They were the eyes of a predator. Once locked on, they probably wouldn't let go.

Underneath the yellow eyes, you dimly note that she had been red-faced. Apparently rising out – no, slumping out of your bed – had took her some great effort.

The two of you stare at each other for a while – you, the exhausted summoner on the floor, her, the entrancing fox-lady exhausted and barely standing.

She broke the silence first.

"Lucky day for you, wizard," she half- purred, half-panted. "I was unable to drain you fully."

You simply stare numbly at her. You _need_ to focus all of your energy into breathing if you want to stay conscious. Or living, for that matter.

"I wonder if it was because I lacked my own… power, after being nearly dead, or if it was because of your own mental strength… although I think we could agree that it was likely because you yourself didn't have much left to drain anyways," she continued.

You still stay silent. Breathing isn't an easy job.

"We've reached an impasse, wizard… well, judging from your sloppy spellwork, wizard-in-training," she purred. "Now, what will you do? Shall you perhaps turn me to the authorities? Slay me myself? Or perhaps…"

She tugged gently at her neckline. Boobs bouncing don't make a sound, but your brain registered it as one.

"Perhaps you might keep me as your slave? Hmm? You'll –"

She broke off, and coughed. Might be an understatement there – she practically retched on the floor, and your tired eyes thought that they saw a little bit of blood leaving it. She disappeared from your vision as she collapsed to the floor, same like you did. There was wheezing noises.

There was silence for a good minute, and for another minute following it. In that time, you recuperated. Just enough to regain control of your limbs, at least. You forced yourself up on your knees.

The fox-lady was on the floor, propping herself up with an elbow. She stared at you in anger and contempt, breathing heavily. She appeared to be suffering heavily from exhaustion.

"I can't drain you," she muttered. "I don't know why. You're shielded, maybe, or you're stronger than you look… I'm weak, I'm weak, and now I'm dead…"

You stare at her blankly. Right now, words went into one ear and shot straight out of the other. You don't have the energy to try and comprehend them.

She stared at you. "Well? Hurry it up, wizard. Your kind made me, your kind will end me... I could try draining you again. You would die. I would live. I don't even have the mana to drain you..."

There were more blank stares from your end. You can't think. You're too tired to think. Sleep is nice. Sleep is good. At some point in your life, you would remember this time, and say that you were the exact opposite of any hero, many of which who you've tried to emulate (and at some point much later on, become). No hero would sleep in the face of danger, unless that danger happens to inflict sleepiness upon you at which point the person would retire permanently due to death, or far worse fates. No hero would let exhaustion get the better of him at a critical moment though.

But hey. You're not a hero.

The world went dark, and you collapsed.

* * *

You open up your eyes. Consciousness came to you slowly, then suddenly in a flash. Your body was telling you that you – and it, by extension – were in danger.

The fox girl was still on her knees in front of you, but with one finger pointed at your face. Also a smirk on her face, as well.

A quick glance to your left AND right reveal that little purple fire spirits were hovering around you. You don't move, not that you really wanted to.

"I won't kill you," she purred. "I still need your very, very –" and here, her voice dripped with extreme sarcasm – " _kind_ care to fully recover my strength. And we both know that you'd likely say no, you wouldn't want to do that, but unfortunately for you, I have a twitchy trigger finger in case you're thinking of doing anything bad to me."

She paused, then winked tiredly at you. "Of course, I may allow certain _bad_ things to happen to me…"

You gingerly nod your head. You were scared of the moving spirit fire that was still circling your head, but one by one, they flickered out, except for one last on-

It bumped into your chin. Electricity surged to your body, and you dropped limp to the ground again. This has been becoming someone of an old, tired habit to you at this point.

"Also, even if you try to kill me, authorities will catch up to me at one point. You would be executed under Demacian law, you know, found with a dead body near you."

The paralysis wore, just slightly. "What did you do?" you stammer out.

"Something." She turned her back to you. "Maybe if you were a good enough… _pet_… then maybe, just maybe, I'll tell you… and your old life back, with it. So what do you say? Maybe you can help me out, mmm?"

* * *

No, I'll end it here, I ran out of time, it's New Year's already and I planned this for CHRISTMAS.

I DID THE 50,000 WORDS, I SUCCEEDED, IT'S JUST THAT I COULDN'T WRITE FOR TWO WEEEKS AFTER IT DUE TO THE INJURIES ON MY FINGERS I'M SORRY.

I'M SORRY FOR THE SHITTY QUALITY OF THIS SHIT TOO.

HAPPY NEW YEARS. MAYBE I'LL MAKE THINGS BETTER.

IDK.

ALSO.

I think I'll be posting two continuations: one, where you (try to) kill ahri, which is, let's be honest. The thing that you should do. You don't really try to help someone when they have you at gunpoint or just tried to kill you. Also, writing the ending to this fic in the most non-cheesy possible way was also part of what took me so long to write this thing, and I didn't even manage to come up with a satisfying ending. I'm sorry.


	4. Chapter 4

Okay.

Uh.

I honestly meant to upload a lot sooner than end of January, but there were a lot of reasons. They're all important, I promise!

1\. First two weeks of January: tried to mine enough shroomite to build a house in Terraria, didn't have nearly as many chlorophyte as needed

2\. College apps for all the weeks later on

3\. Ran STRAIGHT through Game of Thrones and Ansatsu Kyoushitsu one week prior to this fic being uploaded

_I'M SORRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY_

So uh. I cobbled a lot of words together in one day because I GOTTA UPLOAD MAN. Quality matters and all that but I feel that if I ever stop uploading a fic, if I keep delaying for whatever reason, I'll stop writing it, and they'll join the fic graveyard over there.

Let us all take a moment for all the unfinished fics out there.

That moment can start by reading this one, for example.

* * *

"_S-so what's stopping me from just walking out of the door when you're sleeping?"_

_The temptress smiled coyly at you, despite lying down in the sickbed being barely able to walk or keep awake for that matter. "Then I'll become healthier on my own. It'll take much longer, to be sure, but at that time, you should have a shovel at hand, because you're going to have to dig your own grave, after you dig everyone else's graves in a five kilometer-radius."_

_You've always imagined these sorts of conversations in your head – the kind that heroes have, where they bravely stand up to the villain. It's at this point where they'd typically reply bravely that they'd rather die or something else. But you're just not a hero. You try to be, and you dream of being one, but the fear simply flows down, down, and…_

_The fox-temptress laughed weakly. "Well, I suppose you're going to be my pet for until I recover, then. Worry not, I won't kill you before… maybe after, if you've displeased me… and it would please me most greatly if you would stop soiling your smallclothes and making a stink out of this room, my cowardly pet."_

* * *

If there's anything you've ever learned, and you've _always, always_ slacked off during lessons and never did your homework and generally was the second-laziest non-failing douchebag that your class ever had the dishonor to have, it's that getting your soul ripped off your body generally falls under the category of not a good idea.

Fox fires, sometimes known as will – o – wisps, is fatal against any sentient living creature. Part of the reason why is because it ignores the physical realm and pierces straight through conventional barriers, which is part of the reason why mages and sorcerers became some of the strongest forces in Runeterra. You're having around three of those thankfully non-homing projectiles thrown in your general direction every hour.

One hit would probably sear the soul off your body. This is even worse than having your flesh seared off your bones, because, let's face it, flesh grows back. On the other hand, centuries of magical research and definitely fatal experiments conducted by mages of the old had never even figured out which part of a human soul is 'safe' to destroy before the target loses mental stability, and, for some strange reason, physical stability. It often culminates in disgusting explosions of flesh.

Mages had a tiny bit more resistance to its effects than most people, and League Champions probably had either the mental fortitude or magical skill to prevent those. You, on the other hand, only have the latter, and while you're near the top of your class in terms of skill, you only got there because everyone else was flat out lazier than you are. And you don't _dare_ test your shields or anything else in the presence of a magical spellcasting beautiful creature, because that first test might very well be the last one, and also the last action that you'll ever take.

She never threw it at you, to be fair. She threw it around you, just whizzing past your ears, or sometimes she would make it drift lazily past your line of vision, making you jump back in fear, or sometimes she _does_ throw it at you. In an easily dodge-able manner.

You'd think that after the umpteenth fox-fire she'd stop, or at least you'd grow a pair and stop flinching from it and face it like a man. You're not that kind of person, unfortunately for yourself.

Sighing, you turn to what you were working on.

Ever since she woke up, you've suspended all sort of homework in favor of working on a cure for her. This derives from the logical assumption that when she is healed, she will _leave_. It's easily the safest way to get her out of your house and out of your life.

You would _love_ to kill her in revenge or tell the Demacian authorities, yes, but that way has risks involved. And you're not a big fan of putting your life on the line, or really, putting anything on the line. It works once or never works, because once she's found out that you've betrayed her, that's _definitely_ the end of the line for you.

So right now, you focus on your job, which involved a pot of stew.

Pots of stew are, historically speaking, the universal food to give the sick. And it happens to be a happy coincidence that stew is very easy to cook, at least on a fundamental level.

Throw stuff into a boiling pot and stir, right? And it just so happens that you can't cook very well anyways, so this'll definitely help. You pour some into a bowl, and sipped it. It was alright. It was edible, at least.

It was also scalding and scorched your tongue so that the edges of it smart and feel numb, but it was really tasty, and you were starving anyways. You brought it to the sleeping-fox girl on the opposite side of the bookshelf-wall that you've erected between the technical kitchen and the bedroom/library/dining room combo.

One-room houses are cheap for a reason, anyways.

* * *

One last detail: maybe you're not fat, but you're the spitting image of _not_ athletic, that's for sure.

But you can still dance between teetering rows of books and balance on slippery piles of unused paper, and even jump just at the right places while making sure the full bowl wouldn't spill and yet not step on leftover quills on the floor, which had more than once rolled beneath your feet and made you fall. It is with this acrobatic lack of grace that you made your way through your always-messy bedroom towards the bed and put down the bowl of soup right next to your sleeping patient slash prisoner.

You hesitated before leaving. She looked so very, very peaceful during her nap.

That was the wrong word, since her face was flushed and uncomfortable, just like someone sleeping during a fever, but it was much better than her face when she's giving your orders. It was a callous and cruel face that gave the orders during that time, one that lacks any sort of thought to you or your well-being. You are a toy, from her point of view, only that you weren't worthy of the sort of compassion that people give to toys.

You can't help but stare, either. There was this one time when you saw a picture of the outlaw queen of the Shuriman desert, and can't help but think that underneath all cruelty, there must be a decent person inside, right? A pretty face shouldn't – no, not quite. A pretty face wouldn't have an actually cruel person inside, right?

It was only wishful thinking, though. You couldn't help but think of all the pretty girls during summoner classes that were not at all pretty on the inside. And yet you couldn't help but wish that in addition to a pretty face, they'd have a beautiful heart, too, but it's not always the case. And when it's not the case, you often couldn't stop wishing and pretending that it was the case, which explains why you were always nice to them even when they treat you like trash.

You look back at that train of thought. Shit just got convoluted.

You also took a look back at reality, because someone just threw a ball of fox-fire straight by your ears. You jump back. It was a good thing you already set down the bowl of soup, because if you didn't, it's more than liable to land behind you by now.

"Good morning, my pet," croaked the fox. Even hoarse, she still retains some sort of magical quality about her.

You have no doubt that the creature in front of you is nowhere as beautiful as you perceive her to be, because of god-bloody damn magic. Magic was the answer to nearly everything, in this world. An armor is impenetrable? Magic. A sword cuts through everything? Magic. You tried time and time again to bring those two things together, but your instructors said that you shouldn't. Why? Magic!

She's keeping all that magic inside her at the moment, so it could be said that what you were seeing was her true form. Still beautiful. She had a perfectly shaped face and such smooth skin, and such a dark hair that cradles her head like a pillow. It contrasts very nicely right now in bed, the white fluff of her lustrous tail against her ebon hair.

And that's already the beauty of her without any magic. When she tried to fully charm you, you thought your pants would've burst.

She laughed when you didn't say anything. "Captivated by my sleeping face?" she teased. "Were you thinking of sweet things about me? Or maybe bad, bad things?" She giggled.

Her jabs made you uncomfortable in more ways than one. Chief among them is the way that her eyes went right through you instead of looking at you. She'd never mean those words, no matter how much you yearn for it. You are truly being treated as a slave here. A toy, at best. But also the fact that you took care of her while wounded, and this is how she repays you.

"Were you trying to kill me, perhaps? It would be nice if you grew some backbone." She flicked another fox-fire at you.

You sigh.

"Hey, say something when your mistress is speaking."

"I was simply bringing you soup," you sigh.

A streak of blue fire flew past you. You barely even had time to blink.

"Mistress!" you yelped. She kept forcing you to call her that. She smiled.

"And so rightly you should. Feed me."

You stare at her. In response, a blue wisp coalesced on her fingertip, and she wagged it at you.

You started feeding her, a spoonful at a time. You note how weak she was physically – she's barely standing, and you're not sure if she could actually hold a spoon if she had to ask you, although of course, it's more than likely that she would rather have her arms free to throw spiritual beams of energy at you rather than occupy them with things as mundane as eating.

As you did, you kept yourself warm by wishing her away. You _tried_ to imagine her gruesome death, but you generally got as far as red blood before you remind yourself that you couldn't bring yourself to do that sort of thing to anyone, as well as the fact that she'd kill you for thinking it. Maybe.

You're used to this sort of thing, but at least you _know_ the bullies that do it. They do it because you're weak, and would go away the second that someone stronger comes. This is a whole different kind of bullying. She's doing it because… why, exactly? It's so much easier to kill you and take your life energy, since it looks like she could do those sort of things to other people, so why keep you alive and why do these sort of things?

"Boy," she said. "You could continue feeding me air, and I wouldn't get any better."

You stare at her, and then the bowl. The bowl had become empty, and you just realized.

You blush in embarrassment. _Shit_.

And now she's looking down on you even more. The jibes are going to be worse from here on out, isn't it.

But instead, she just ignored you. Smiling, she sank immediately beneath the covers of her sheet until nothing but her cute little fox-ears show. And then her body contracted, wrinkling the blanket, and there was a rustling noise, and her nine tails curled around her, and you knew that she was asleep already.

You took this chance to sneak away.

* * *

You find yourself back in the kitchen, washing the bowl that you fed her with, and then eating your own fill. You're not exactly the best cook in the world, but you pulled out all of the stops when it comes to cooking food after three days ago, since you had a feeling that if you gave her food that wasn't to her liking, you would've became a pile of exploded flesh.

You want to hate her. But you're too scared to even think that.

That's one of the worst things about magic. It's the depth of it. Knowing that your opponent does magic gives them so many possible ways to kill you. They could straight-up blow you up, change your future, curse you, rip your soul from your body… mind-reading was almost easy compared to all that. Besides, you really couldn't bring yourself to hate her.

Actually, no. You hate her, but not to a murderous intensity. You simply try to accept that she's a goddamn beautiful nuisance that waltzed into your life, and you're going to try and get rid of it as soon as you can. She's worthy of your hate for jacking over your life for no good reason whatsoever while being rude about it, but it's nowhere as bad as the old seniors back in Class 413.

You finish your soup, too, in a state of quiet contemplation.

It's a contemplative sort of day. You're kind of feeling like it.

But right after you thought you had _some_ time to attend to other responsibilities – studying, for one – there was a voice from the other side of the bookshelf.

You sigh. You really don't want to go.

A wispy streak rocketed past the small gap that served as the entrance between the 'kitchen' and the 'bedroom'.

You decided that it was probably healthier for you to attend to her immediately.

* * *

I told you it was a lot shorter than I wanted it to be, but I really wanted to upload something.

But this got me in the mood for more writing, because I'm nearly at the point where I can wrap out the story and make it into something I've always intended it to be.

So the next update will probably be sooner

I apologize as well for the quality: actually, one of the reasons that I delayed for so long is to figure out how to make Ahri and (you) maintain a cordial relationship. I _think_ I've got it so far, and I can run with it and make it work. Until then, I'd like you guys to let me know what you think, no matter how harsh.

bcuz trust me no matter how harsh you are you'll never be my dad

no wait don't take that the wrong way he's not strict or abusive or whatever but

DAMN

his standards are fucken one billilionon empire buildings tall

I'll see you on the next update! Should be real soon.


	5. Chapter 5

This makes it around what, a week after the latest one?

Anyways, I have this habit of seeing exactly who reviewed or followed my story, and by GOD some of you people are TALENTED authors.

One other thing, the reason I took unnecessarily long: I don't know why but I have this REALLY weird habit of slowing the fuck down at around 2000 words. Like 1000 words I go NYOOOM. 3k? NYOOOOOOOOOOM.

But 2k I just went bleh.

It's like I just can't focus around that number and I just go real slow. Anyone else has a similar problem?

Maybe it's not really the number, maybe it's just me getting hella distracted by climbing the elo ladder into the glorious high rank of silver (excuse me while I cry) while going completely nuts about the EU LCS and the American LCS.

Anyways, who cares about what I do, right? Here's a story!

* * *

Afternoon was decidedly more painful than noon.

It's been said that what you get isn't always what you want, but what you deserve. Looking at it from a 20/20 hindsight perspective, and everything else, you probably _did_ deserve the task that she gave you. But this is now, and that was then. You strode in expecting a light job that wouldn't really take up much of your time, energy, or effort, and not only did this request threw you way off guard, it also fueled her with an amused little smile, the same way a pet owner would be amused by the angry antics of her puppy.

"Clean your room," she croaked, in an oddly beautiful voice, while small wisps of fox-fire played around her prone body.

Why clean my room, you'd grumble. _She's_ not your mother. Hold a teenage boy at gunpoint, and you can make him do practically anything, _except_ for cleaning his room. Very few forces in the world could make a teenage boy clean his own room.

"Why?" You frowned. Pouted, more like.

"Because you're _my_ pet and you do what _I_ say," she said, and coughed a little. "And this room simply makes me sick because of how untidy everything is." Frowning, she tilted her head slightly. "It's your job to keep your own dwellings tidy, at any rate. Do humans have no notion of cleanliness? Perhaps you really are below the level of mere beasts. Even squirrels keep their acorn stashes more tidily."

"Ain't gonna," you said angrily.

A bolt of fox-fire whizzed past your ear. You didn't even have time to blink.

"Best reconsider," she purred roughly.

And that was how you finally got to clean your room. Apparently, the threat of death was more than enough to get you to move and clean your room. That doesn't stop you from hating it, though.

You mindlessly grabbed a large stack of paper that was probably from last three terms from before you had to move from Demacia to Bandle City. Some of them were probably important, so you rifled through them _very_ quickly and then decided to throw them all into the trash bin. Screw importance, this work is _boring_.

To clarify things a little bit: your entire borrowed house was around ten meters in width, seven in length. It was divided evenly in a golden ratio, which gives you five meters and three and a half for your bedroom. Looking back, you probably should have divided the original one-room house with the shelves and gave the bedroom more space, because now that you were actually forced to clean your room, you actually start noticing… well… things.

Huge things. Like wobbling stacks of books that nearly reach the ceiling, which confused you because you're nowhere near as high as the ceiling. How did it get there?

Dusty, as well. You were well and truly determined to make a bad job of cleaning up your room – after all, this is your room. To you, it's tidy, because the definition of tidy for you is 'knowing where everything is'. Maybe not to miss sickly-and-pretty-but-going-to-kill-you lying in the bed over there, but you still don't see why it needs cleaning when it's as tidy… as… manageable as it is.

You took down that teetering tower of books by using the complex magic of telekinesis and set them side by side on the floor, although you've had to move several _other_ stacks out of the way. Sighing, you got to sorting them, and soon got absorbed in the work.

You somehow managed to finish the stack by a clever combination of throwing away some of the books and shoving the rest into an unused, dusty corner. There was much dust flying about in the air, but the books were organized, and no longer mixed up with each other.

"There, that's neater now, isn't it?" you muttered to yourself.

You turned back to find your foxy patient reading one of your more illicit books, uncensored in all of its pornographic glory, that she probably picked up from the messy stack of books around your bed.

Your blood turned cold, and then solid. You couldn't move. There was a crushing pressure all around you, one that prohibits movement, and it was called the pressure of shame, mortifying shame, that you'd get caught reading something like that –

"You keep some rather interesting books around, don't you?" she croaked nonchalantly as she weakly flipped each page. Her body was limp, but her eyes were sharp and fixated on each page of your book.

_killmekillmekillmekillmekillmekillme_

"They're rather like the things that people want me to do to them," she purred. Then she smiled weakly at you.

"I-uh-" you stammer.

There was a humming noise from her direction, and it took you a while to realize that she was sort of giggling with her mouth closed.

"Don't worry, young boys are all like that, aren't they?" she smiled. "I suppose it's perfectly understandable, they just got their healthy young body and used it… I certainly used mine," she purred, lowering her eyelids slightly.

Normally, this kind of conversation would have elected a blush or an offended response from you, maybe even an erection. But you're much too embarrassed from having your most private contents picked up off the floor like that. Oh, how could you be so _careless_? She'll just think of you as just a pervert from now on, and…

Well, you learned the hard way that a blazing wisp streaking right past you is the best cure for any sort of emotional distress, because that was exactly what happened. You yelped.

"Back to work, my sweet pet," she giggled. "All of this messiness makes me antsy, annoyed… and you don't want me annoyed, mm?"

"Besides," she continued, "maybe if your room was cleaner I wouldn't be finding your more questionable books and scrolls just lying around the floor."

In a state of mental depression, you returned to your work of cleaning up your room.

It's a really odd thing about teenage boys, girls, and, well, teenagers in general, that what they hate the most about cleaning up their rooms was the beginning.

There were two pair of eyes watching you, too. Isn't this just like home?

You've always hated being told to clean up your room, yes, but for some reason, once the initial hate fades, your mind instantly enters that state where you start to analyze things and categorize and plan for them in a neat and orderly manner, much like a science experiment. You began seeing where there was a lot of books of a certain subject, and put the ones that were lying on the floor in that area and started to organize them into little rows and, when space got tight, little columns. You stopped thinking about the work that you wanted to get done or the relaxation that you could be doing, and just focused on the nearly calming mindlessness of grabbing a book and putting it in the right place.

And as you worked, you thought a little bit about your patient-slash-master-slash-slave driver. There was, again, no logical reason for her to let you live. Why aren't you dead? She pulls out death threats so casually that it's almost becoming old, and then she actually very nearly carried it out. It doesn't matter how many times you shoot a gun near an animal, they'll always be scared, and so are you. Nearly dead is too risky to pass up.

It's even stranger, that she didn't _thank_ you or anything. You realize that the world was full of assholes and bastards, but all except for the most ruthless of thieves would turn away someone who saved their very life. Many a thief had reformed because of Piltover's surprisingly gentle police force, like that pink-haired criminal with ginormous arms that you saw last week. Word was she got pardoned. But despite all the property damage that she had caused, she was accepted with open arms, her life saved by the force, and just like that, she reformed. You're not expecting anything of the sort from your captor slash patient slash something, but some gratitude… that'd be nice.

You spent the rest of the time fantasizing and making up theories about your captors, which increasingly turned worryingly violent. You're not a particularly violent person, but the fact that you were so engrossed in the thoughts of revenge…

It came as a surprise to you, then, when your stomach rumbled, and you realized that you have your own bodily needs, such as food. And drink. And also not cleaning up your room. You've been sitting on your haunches, and you couldn't feel them anymore. The pins and needles had possessed them.

Frick.

You tried getting up, but fell down on your buttocks again. It was so, so very painful to move when any part of your body is consumed by the pins and the needles, because every time you try to a sharp electric current ran through your leg, and you sit down again. So you waited for a bit, stretching out your legs, trying to shake them back to life and willing your blood to circulate into your legs again. Then you got up, and hobbled over towards the small opening in the shelves. Maybe it was time for a snack, or an early dinner of sorts.

There were _still_ two pair of eyes watching you. With a start, you realized that they were probably on you all that time.

"You've been watching me?" you asked.

"I'm a sick patient. There isn't anything to do, is there, Mr. Doctor… or now that you mention it, _anyone_ to do." She winked coquettishly at you, and you felt your pulse rise.

"You're a real pain in the ass, you know that?" you reply, trying very hard to fight the blush that was rising to your cheeks. It wasn't the only thing you need to keep from rising at her words.

"I could be a pain elsewhere, if you're into that sort of thing," she laughed.

"Look, could you just stop?" you said angrily. "I took you in, nursed you to any sort of health, and then you repay me by taking over my busy schedule so I can't do my homework, or my housework, or anything else, for that matter, and – oh, alright, I'll shut up now."

There were three wisps floating around her finger, and she's _wagging_ it at you, a playful frown on her face. You're not quite sure how that work, either, but the visual oxymoron somehow made the gesture all the more threatening.

"Now, that's not the kind of attitude I'd like to see from my pets… or slaves in general," she said. "You were going to make lunch, weren't you? I can hear your hunger… and probably not just for food in general." She winked.

You opened your mouth to say something but closed it at the last moment, an act that made you look like a goldfish opening and closing its mouth in confusion. The sight must've been quite amusing, because she started humming and coughing at the same time, which was more or less her attempt at laughing.

That laughing cough was interrupted by the sound of a kettle boiling. With a start, you realized that the sun was already setting, and your stomach demanded its dinner from you. You also realized that you left the kettle running for nearly three hours. The fascinating bit wasn't the fact that the kettle survived for that long, it was the bit where the water hadn't been boiling despite being heated for three hours. It was rather bizarre, but you put that detail aside for later.*

"Whatever. Get me some dinner as well, if you'd be very kind."

* * *

As a summoner-in-training, there are several rules to follow, but the big one, the cardinal rule above all, is to be as lazy as you can in everything except for studying.

This isn't out of pure sloth, it's all about the _efficiency_. If you're going to mentally tire yourself out by cleaning up your room, then that activity isn't worth it. If you're going to tire your body out by jogging as opposed to abusing the laws of magic to transport yourself to the nearby town just half a kilometer away, then abusing the law and knowledge of magic would probably be the way to go. The teachers can't say anything about that, either, since everyone does it, themselves included.

The point was that you never prepared lunch. In fact, you've never had lunch, or, it would be far more accurate to say that you've never had breakfast. You eat breakfast sometime at ten in the morning and then eat lunch, and since preparing proper food is far too time-consuming, you're practically eating a second breakfast.

It's not so bad. After a while, all food tastes a lot like technomagical equations.

It's terrible, however, in the eyes of the eyes of your patient slash captor. As she put it:

"You're getting proper dinner. You just ate the same bowl of - I don't even know _what_ you call it, but you just ate it for both breakfast _and_ lunch, and if you don't prepare a proper one for me – "

"Look, if you don't like it, then don't eat. You can't take away something I don't have," you shot back. It was true, anyways. It was near the end of the month, and you don't have any food whatsoever stockpiled in the house.

The wisps came to her fingers again, fluid and fast, but this time, you held your ground. You didn't run away. Or rather, you can't run away, although by the way your knees are quaking, your body is trying its best to. "Kill me if you want, but killing me over a piece of food? Since you take the trouble of keeping me alive for such a long time –"

The wisp barely missed you and lodged itself in the bookshelf behind you. Something went sizzle, but you closed your eyes, and tried your darndest to ignore it and finish the sentence.

"- you might as well keep me alive for a little bit longer? I really have nothing here to cook anything with… mistress," you finish as respectfully as you can. No sense in trying to be snarky when your life is in danger.

The fox-girl relented. The wisps disappeared, and she lowered her fingers.

"Then go out to the market and buy materials for more food," she growled.

"No money," you laugh nervously. "And in case you haven't noticed, it's _nighttime_. No one sells anything at the moment."

She stares at you for what feels like a very long time, and her feral eyes slowly start to unnerve you. But at last, she relents.

"Wash your pants first. Then feed me whatever's left, I suppose. A fox isn't picky about what she eats," she mutters. "But we don't eat _water_…"

You look down at your pants and the smelly puddle of yellowish water that was pooling at your feet, and you decide that she was probably right. You went and hobbled over to the bathroom to wash your pants.

You're not a courageous person, not by any measure of courageous, are you?

* * *

You're quite used to spoonfeeding her by now, and since she was unconscious for most of the time, feeding her and keeping her alive is a much easier task now. Of course, the fact that she keeps one finger innocently on your body at all time as a sort of death threat was alarming, but you find that you were able to maintain your composure since you didn't have any more urine to piss yourself with.

Oddly enough, the atmosphere in your little cottage was almost romantic. The sun just barely set, and the last stray rays of sunlight barely brushed the relatively thick trees around your cottage. The light-runes that you've set up around your house automatically came on by themselves, but since you couldn't really afford to use too much of your school money for the sake of powering your personal illumination, there was only one light-rune inside the house, and that was shining directly above the both of you, painting the bedroom yellow. And due to the darkness of the forest floor on sunset, in addition to how quiet nature became**, it felt like it was just the two of you in the entire world.

It's a pity that she's a murderous psychopath, you nonchalantly thought. At this point of exhaustion, a meteor could crash into Runeterra and you'd take it in stride easily.

"You're eating from the same bowl," she said, after swallowing her fifth mouthful.

"I get hungry too, you know," you mutter to her. "And you're not exactly washing the dishes either, so can't you at least be grateful that –"

"I'm not eating from the same spoon as you are."

"Tough luck, I live alone, so there's only one. You can't be telling me that you actually believe in all that indirect kissing bull-"

"No, it's unhygienic. We foxes don't eat from another fox's food cache. We might get diseases."

"If anything, I'll be the one getting diseases, since you're the sick one here. Now eat," you said, prodding the spoon in the general direction of her mouth.

Her fingernail dug tightly into your stomach. "Shut up," she mumbled. But at least she wasn't doing anything that would severely inconvenience you.

You scoop as much soup as you can into the spoon, and gently pushed it into her mouth. No sense in making her angry. Maybe if you were nice enough, maybe this'll all end? And god knows that you've been nice enough already. Most people would probably have tried poisoning her soup. You go to the High Summoner Academies, you wouldn't have any shortage of poisons. It's just that you're way too nice to wish someone to die, much less actually carry out on the threat.

So it was a silent scene that went on, a beautiful girl lying in bed and an average student, spoon-feeding her. That was it. You both remained silent, and so did nature – the wind was barely blowing and the sun simply continued shining outside, heating up the room. And the silence intensified, almost to the point where you could hear each other thinking. She's probably thinking about how mortified she was to be spoon-fed by a student, you thought. And you wonder if she's thinking that you're thinking that exact thought.

The silence was suddenly broken while you were swallowing your own bowlful of soup. "Tell me more about yourself," she said.

"Mf?"

"I'm bored. You're a boring person, and boring people die in my presence. I'd rather not kill you, so make yourself more interesting."

You swirled around the soup in your mouth a little, buying some time for you while you think a little about what to say. "Why would you be interested? I'm just a student. Who cares?"

"The rule is that the person with the deadly wisps of fire gets to be the one that asks the questions," she whispered quietly with a smile on her face. "And I won't kill you, but I find it really really funny when humans roll around in pain… it's quite… exhilarating, don't you think? To be the one that is usually hunted and to find your predator rolling on the ground, powerless?"

_Yes, yes it is, _you thought silently. But you didn't say anything.

"There isn't much to do for me," she continued. "And the more I know about you, the more I can torment my little pet, so you might as well cough up and entertain me a little bit."

You sigh. "I'll just lie to you, though. I'm not gonna let you torment my friends or my family, and –"

"I can take out all the information I want from you anytime I want, boy. I'm just trying to be nice about it. Besides, I'd _know_ if you lie. It's an… animal thing, I guess," she smiled. "Can't a slave-owner be nice to her slaves once in a while?"

You groan. It's more or less the only thing you have left. Unless, of course, you count your murderous captor slash patient in, and you'd really rather not have that.

* * *

The story didn't take long. You never had a very interesting life.

You only needed to tell her about your school life, and that was it. There wasn't any more to your life. Other than your slight skill at replicating other people's spells, as well as a slight aptitude in magic theory, the only outstanding talent that you actually have is your ability to make a damn cup of hot noodles. And since your patient slash tormentor doesn't seem to understand the finer nuances of society, you decide to keep quiet about your talents when it comes to the arts of sorcery. You also decide to keep quiet about your talents in the culinary world, since any mention of that would probably make her angry that you decided to not cook something different for her lunch.

There was one bit that interested her, however. She appeared to be interested in the concept of 'teachers' whenever you told her about your homeroom teacher, Ms. Laurent.

"Hm. So you have more than two mothers in your life."

"That's really how not a teacher works." Explaining the life of a student was difficult, especially when the person you're trying to explain to have no concept of basic human societal lives at all. The concept of having to learn things from people that aren't their mother confused her. Although that may have been the way that you described Ms. Laurent, but you can't really help it – she was a really nice teacher. She may have been teaching fencing to the upper-classmen, but as a homeroom teacher, she did treat the rest of them nicely…

"Foxes have only need of one mother, and they teach you useful things. Things that you'll use in life. Like how to run and how to stockpile your food. Does it matter how much food you have, as long as it's enough? All that addition and subtraction thing seems boring and useless, anyways." She licked her hand in a fox-like manner.

"We just have a more advanced society, alright?" you argue back hotly. "Things like that are necessary! Necessary!"

"Really?" she asked coolly. "All that I've need is to just smile at the old men, or just let some part of my clothing slip… and they'll be fawning all over the ground doing whatever you want. Even all that boring sums that you do." She coughed, then smiled carelessly, much too relaxed in her position. "They'd even give up their life for me… how sweet of them."

"Just how much of a monster _are_ you?" you gasp. "They're innocents! They're-"

"Perverts, or corrupt, or many of the sort," she commented coolly. "The last man that I killed kicked out a woman out of his house moments after he took me in. And then I took his life, right after I took him to heaven… in more ways than one, I suppose." She smiled. "I know what everyone really wants. Even you…"

She giggled. Men would call it sexy, and possibly the scariest part about it, was that it is. You can't help but get slightly aroused, to want her paying attention to you and you only, to have – well, a _crush_ on her, in a sense. You just heard her confess to being a murderer and a liar, and you just can't help but be _attracted_ to her. Your body is telling you everything differently, even though your mind knows that she's a dangerous being.

"I-I?"

"Fox got your tongue, boy?" She laughed again.

And you can't get angry. You can't get riled up, either. It was as if that some part of your body doesn't want to rebel against her, on the off-chance that maybe, just maybe, all her teasing isn't just a game, that she actually cares, that all this abuse isn't really for naught, that she was just testing you, despite you knowing for _sure_ that this wasn't a test, that she's probably really just cruel.

Argh! You even used the word probably in your thoughts! She _is_ cruel!

It was just like all of the 'popular' girls that you knew during your high school years. No matter how much they trash-talked the boys, they always licked their feet. You never did because you knew that they were trouble, but truth be told, it was mostly because they never paid attention to you. Your status was socially lower than a hole in the ground, and despite these girls bullying or teasing other, similarly socially low kids into doing favors for them, you were never one of the very unfortunate chosen ones.

And now you are. Lucky, lucky you.

"Well, whatever," she commented. "I suppose it's natural for someone young and, well, relatively healthy, I might say, to want _me_. It's not a very interesting story, but it passes the time well enough."

Having said that, she fell silent, and started idly playing with the tips of her tails. You didn't say anything, either. It was just one of those moments when neither party had anything to say, and the conversation is deemed over, and gradually, the sounds of nature started to take over the room.

You sigh, turn around, and stand up. And you wanted to break the silence, and say so many things. Like, how cruel she was. Or how incredibly tortured you feel, and things like that, of how inhumane she's being, considering all your kindness…

But you didn't say any of those things, however. You never had the courage to.

Instead, you just walk out of the room.

But before you made it out of the room, you heard a soft voice, just at the edge of your hearing.

"Thanks for the food, I guess," she said softly towards your retreating back.

You whirled back as fast as dignity would allow.

But all that you saw was her, playing with her tails idly again, as if the world no longer interested her anymore. She glanced idly at you, like a cat lazily examining a wandering mouse but deciding that it was too lazy to catch it, and prefers to observe instead.

* * *

*In fact, the actual reason was because you were just really sloppy in making the heating runes required to heat the kettle. They would barely lasted two weeks, and guess how long it's been since you made them?

**Nature actually gets progressively louder at night-time, but word had gotten around the forest floor that you are now the magical stinky and home-destroying man, and the animals would rather not have their lives destroyed as well as their habitats. Especially by someone so stinky. Come to think of it, the nearest river WAS around a mile or two away... just how many times _did_ you get to take a bath a week? It's a miracle your patient slash captor haven't retched yet. Probably the mortal wounds blocked her sense of smell or something.

Hopefully I'm setting up the romance bit correctly this time, and I really hope that you enjoyed this!

I'm going to work on writing the bad-end should you, the main character, decide to try and kill her. That won't make for a very long chapter, so I think I might try and push that back to two weeks from now, since right now I'd rather work on all the 'long' romancey boringy chapters.

Why? Because neither C9 nor UOL are fighting particularly tough teams this week, so I don't think I have to stay up all night watching for hours at end ^^

Remember to review to give me more stuff to work with! They really help, by the way!

One more thing I really wanted to write:

_Far, far far into the future_

"So your charm... weakened?" you ask, confused. But she was just as lovely as ever, and -

"The more human I get, the less I feel good about flirting with other people... even if it's combat purposes," she said, tossing her spirit orb from her left hand to her right and back, her face in a slight frown. "I think it's this unconscious gesture that's lowering its power... I can't even force the charmed to expose their weak points anymore... but that's alright, right?" she smiled. "Aren't you just so jealous when they look at me with those eyes... even though you know that I'm the one forcing them to do it, you can't help but feel jealous, can you?"

She smiled ever so teasingly at you, and even now, you still can't help but blush beet red at her provocative little teasing.

"It's alright, though!" she laughed. "I don't get why, but now I can do..."

She hurled the orb at you. It whistled and spun as it described an arc of death through the air.

You threw yourself at the ground, but before you even touched it, a soft yet firm grip caught you first, and made sure that you landed facing upwards.

"Why did you do that?!" you shout at empty air, before you realized - she wasn't there.

In fact, you realized that she was the one who caught you. Turning, you saw your savior, smiling at your red, sweating face.

"I can move so much faster when I throw out my orbs now," she laughed. "So, so much faster. I don't get the exact principle behind it, though, so maybe you'd like to examine... me?" she invited, seductively. "C'mon, teacher, don't you want to know the magical principles behind my power change... my buff, if you will?"

I'm gonna end this here. I NEARLY got carried away and tried to fit in the Fizz nerfs/buffs as well as the trist updates, but I said to myself:

It's fucking three in the morning. SLEEP.

Gnite!


	6. Intermission 1: The Fox Life

Intermission: The Fox Life

Kay, so this is the first intermission chapter! If you want to continue on to...

um.

Your own?

The summoner-to-be's own?

The...

The protagonists own adventures, then go on to the next chapter, currently damned well nonexistent at the time of this writing! Y'don't have to read this then :3

I write this because sometimes, I just get tired of writing the usual romance, and plus, this should be good in (trying to) explore the reason behind Ahri's current callous behavior. Also, can we rewind back to the tired of writing usual romance? Cos this is like the first time I ever wrote romancey shit. God damn it's awkward.

Especially if you use it as portfolio material and then like someone opens the site to check it out and see a hormonal teenager's six thousand words of pure hormonal shit. Aaawkward.

This is a two-parter AND I think I'll try posting it in a separate fic (is that allowed? Or should I just publish the separate fic instead of making this chapter? Does anyone know?) since I'm okay with the way this thing worked out.

One more question before I let you read this story (It's not like I have the power to magically stop you from scrolling, or even just flicking your eyes downwards a bit if you're on those fancy-shcmancy widescreen bigscreen thingamajigs) -

How do you focus?

I have THE WORST focus problems during writing, and it's eating up a lot of my time. I realize and agree that you can't force people to write every day, but the mark of a good author is to be able to write SOMETHING. One of the best authors I know writes around 4k words a (working) day, and I'd LOVE to match that, but sometimes I just have a lot of trouble focusing, and I wander around the depths of the internet...

So yeah, please, if anyone knows some tips for that, do tell me. I really want to become a better sort of author, and through that, a better sort of person. If I can master the art of focusing, that'll save me a LOT of time.

Okay go read shoo.

* * *

She smelled monkey, and that's something that she doesn't smell very often.

After all, monkeys are a rather rare sight in the southern parts of Ionia. They're a rare sight in Ionia period: the south is a little too temperate for monkeys to thrive (although there was the occasional 'ook' heard in the southernmost corners of the province, followed by cries of 'Aaar!' and 'Where's me beer?!') and the north is far too frigid for… well… for much of anything, really.

Of course, there was also the race of hairless monkeys known as humans, but this doesn't smell like them. This is the smell of fur, where strange scents were trapped between the matted bundles of fiber and kept for a very long time, fermenting into the smell of something nasty, especially when water is added to the equation. She pawed quietly at her snout to remove the smell, but it's the darned super-sharp sense of smell again. Sometimes being a fox is difficult.

Humans were different. They smelled much nicer.

This is a problem with her, as well. She's rather obsessed with becoming human.

* * *

_The white fox, alone and homeless…_

* * *

She was a regular fox until a runestone dropped from the skies and bombarded her home, crushing her mother and father and her two sisters. But she didn't shed a single tear, or mourn, because that sort of things happen in the forest. Foxes don't have a concept of mortality or the afterlife. She saw her other sister, her older one, stuck in a trap and carried away by humans, and she yelped and whined for help, but when her sister actually died by the hunter's hand, life just went on, and she ran away. It's a fox life. It was there, and then it wasn't. There's no time to think about what could have been or might have been or was and wasn't – there's only the next meal and the next food.

In fact, she never had these thoughts before the runestone hit. Self-awareness was a human thing. There's a lot of messy things that comes with it, including boreness, forethought, desires, hindsight, and so on. Foxes didn't need those. You can't afford to have second thoughts in a world where you're one meal away from starvation, at all times.

But when the runestone did crush her family, she didn't obtain these thoughts yet. It started slowly, over the course of the few weeks, and the nearer she stayed near the stone, the more these thoughts accumulated, formed, and came into being on their own.

In fact, the more she thought, the more she learned how to think.

* * *

_The white fox craves knowledge…_

* * *

She thought more and more about different things, like herself. Thoughts slowly devolve from food into other things, like – how to play with her food? How to make hunting more satisfying, or more effective? How to outsmart the other foxes? And slowly, but very surely, she started becoming more and more self-aware. Concepts of fun and concepts of boring started entering her mind, and activities that were once merely ingrained reflexes became difficult to do.

She was becoming more and more human, but she didn't know it yet.

She also thought about the race of hairless monkeys, and how simply… effective… they had been in everything that they did. They didn't work around nature like her race did, they forced nature to work for _them_. When they wanted to build a dwelling, they didn't build it where trees don't stand, they destroy the trees themselves. When they wanted to hunt, yes, some did venture out and did it on their own, but many created a sort of… device… that ensnared animals, saving them from doing the work themselves. And it was an ingenious creation, too! It was made out of the very things that nature gave them, like vines and a few pieces of bait.

Also, her exposure to both the human culture and the runestone changed the way she thought about humans. They used to be furless monkeys, even though she didn't know about the existence of monkeys before. But now, understanding the language of the forest, and combining it with her awareness, she had learned many things.

She learned of different islands and the concept of the sea, that the world is really so much more than just the forest that she lived in and the boundaries decided by the King, the Orange Tiger, and that there was the skies of different changing colors. She learned about the habits of the other animals and how to monopolize said habits, to catch them outside their den and steal their food, even though the concept of stealing didn't exist in the hearts of animals. She slowly became human…

And as she did, she resented the fact that she wasn't one, that she didn't have hands to work with and limited tools that she can access with just her mouth and her small, small paws.

So little by little, she began to devote more and more time towards watching humans, studying their ways and culture, and hope that she could improve her life. It was fine, anyways, because food is usually a few steps away, and thus she had all the time in the world to watch the humans. The fact that said food is more often than not marked by another fox didn't bother her. The fact that the other foxes could smell her also didn't bother her, because foxes can't hold grudges like that. They only understand that another fox had been in the area, but really, is there any part of the forest where a fox hasn't been?

* * *

_The sneaky white fox started to dwell amongst them…_

* * *

Then came vocabulary. At this point, she had managed to figure out around 800 words that humans regularly use, and understood that she was seen as a sort of 'good luck' to them, as well as looking very… attractive? Appealing? The vocabularies become mixed up in her head.

She saw many, many things as well. How the humans used their tools to eat and how the humans used their tools to kill, to write, to court each other…

She started creating markings on trees that were riper than the others, the bushes that bear more berries than others, as well as other things, such as where tigers normally dwell or where the hunters often put their traps. She began to roam around and created new ways of ambushing her prey, such as hiding inside of bushes, sopping wet to cover her scent, and then springing out and catching her prey unwary. She even began to devise ways to avoid potential mates, because she doesn't have any need to procreate at the moment – a completely alien concept to most foxes, because they mate when their body tells them to, as opposed to out of necessity or preference.

She never saw the need to teach these methods to other foxes, as well.

After all, it was hers alone to utilize.

But for her, that was only mildly fascinating. She was content to sit and watch the humans, happy that she got to see these amazing things…

* * *

_The white fox, seeing magic, desires it, craves it, strives for it…_

* * *

The magician came into the village in a time where the white fox thought that she knew everything already. She had already learned about language, books, food, customs, tools… and yes, even human mating rituals, of how females only had to wave their limbs at males for them to come flying at them.

And the display that the magician showed the white fox completely confused her… and attracted her.

It was just like the runestone. The strange energies that she felt swirling around that magician felt just like that, and she wanted more, to understand more. It triggered something deep, deep inside her foxy soul, a soul that she didn't even know that she shouldn't have…

_The white fox, on a frantic hunt…_

Which led her here. She left home, she left the familiar forest that she knew her entire life without a single shred of regret or doubt. She only knew that she must follow the trail of the magician before the trail faded completely, because there is something telling her – either you follow this trail or die old and unsatisfied with life.

It really helps that she was yet to acquire the sense of doubt that humans develop.

So, again.

She was smelling fur. Monkey fur.

And based on her knowledge, monkeys, save for the few exceptions that are the pirate-monkeys down south in the ports of Ionia, don't really exist in Ionia.

So, did one of them come up here? It is, of course, entirely possible that whatever happened to her could have happened to another animal. She had observed that those with four limbs and the capability to stand on two legs happen to have a greater capacity for intellect than most other animals, although the reason behind it seem to elude her at the moment.

Coming to a large tree, she sniffed at the air. There were multiple trails of scent in the air, but the brown one is the one that she was looking for – brown, around as… large as a human? She stopped, confused, and sniffed the air even more to make sure that she's really smelling what she thinks she's smelling. She knew that humans were in the habit of taking the skins off animals and wearing them, probably to make up for the fact that they have none of their own.

But she didn't smell any human. All she smelled was… was…

The weird brown scent. The usual scents of the forests, the dewdrops, the wet soil and a thousand tiny life-forms in ants, aphids, spiders, flies, and mosquitos. The tiny little details of life flashing past her senses, and all that she cared about was the origin of the scent.

She followed the trail all the way to a stream, where she saw… nothing?

Her senses are telling her otherwise, though.

There was wood above her and vine-like things near her, and something in the ground was shaking. That was normal. The abnormal bit is where she sensed that the lives of the insects were off-rhythm… something man-made was, or is, placed here.

She sniffed harder… there it is. She stood on the very edge of a meter-wide square of cloth with soil put on top of it. It disturbed a nest of ants underneath it, which in turn disturbed the aphids that they tended to in the nearby flowers, and so on, and the disturbance that she felt from nature…

The problem is, although foxes could tell that there was a disturbance in the natural rhythm of the area, said disturbance didn't actually tell them anything. They know something is wrong, but in this wrongness lay the one meal they need to not starve.

So they hop blindly into the various traps and hunters that usually await them. Not so this white fox, who now understood the ways of the human.

She lightly maneuvered around the trap, casually crushing one or two female ants that ventured outside of their burrow trying to create a new nest on their own. Just because she understood these things doesn't mean that she needs to be _nice_ about it. Insofar as the concept of niceness exist to her, anyways. She never really understood the point of it in human society.

So she stepped right from the obvious trap into the far less obvious one, and was tussled up three feet into the air, trapped in a small rope net, far less obvious than the trap before.

She made some noises and struggled with all of her might, but it really just made the net jiggle and confuse her perception of the world. She kept on struggling, though, because there isn't really much else that you can do about it. When you're dead at the end, just struggle and hope something comes out of it.

The scent that she smelled before returned, and she looked up to see…

See…

Well, it's human-shaped, that's for sure. And it's tall. It's blocking up the light-orb in the sky, but…

Fur grew all over its body. It's a monkey. It's staring at her with a critical look in its eyes.

It's also wearing armor. And it's holding a staff. A long, large, wooden staff almost as large as itself.

It's also speaking in human tongue, something that the white fox found out to her shock.

Well, well. It was a… a male, she thought, from the deepness of the voice.

* * *

_The white fox finds herself a friend..._

* * *

He came here, apparently, to find out about the rune-shard that crashed into her previous dwelling, in the old forest where she was from. He gained self-awareness from a similar incident, and then he went on to… well… fight things for no reason, he seemed to say, as best as she can decipher.

But to cut his story short, apparently he travelled here to see if he can find anyone similar to him. And he just happened to trap that one animal.

Let me down, the fox whined and whimpered. They weren't speaking Ionian, Noxian, Demacian, they were just speaking in Animal. All animals understand Animal, and it didn't even have to be taught. It's something that they knew in their bones.

The monkey grinned, and laughed.

And then laughed a little bit more.

Then he chuckled a little longer, for good measure.

There was something in the heart of the white fox that was burning, but she didn't know what it is yet, but it did make her want to snap at the monkey and tear his stupid mouth off. Shut up, she tried to yelp, except that the net was constricting her snout, and she tried to rectify that problem by pulling it off her –

It just made the net even more tangled and the monkey to laugh even more.

It was a good half-an-hour later until the monkey finally calmed down enough to untangle the white fox off her restraints. She promptly bit the monkey, to little effect, as his skin tasted as if it was made out of stone underneath all that fur. That prompted more chuckles.

By that time, the light-orb in the skies had set and the tiny orbs that replace it began to twinkle in the now dark skies. Disregarding the white fox clamping down on its legs, while humming and giggling to himself merrily the whole time, the monkey began to set up a fire, and sat cross-legged in front of it, basking in its warmth.

By this time, the white fox had stopped biting, and laid down next to the monkey, who promptly began talking.

His name was Kong, but then someone changed it to Wukong.

She didn't understand the concept of names, by the way. Foxes are just foxes. Names aren't necessary. Identification by species is far more than enough – the concept of individuality simply never occurred to them. But it occurred to her.

And it also occurred to this monkey, as well.

And this monkey wanted nothing but strength. To prove that he's the best, the smartest, the fastest – he wants it all. But running out of challenges in his own home, he ventured forth, just like she did, but instead of searching for magic, he was looking for challenges.

He found that in a wandering warrior, deep in meditation, and…

Well, at this point, the white fox more or less lost interest. She isn't really going to find anything else more about magic this way, would she?

She tried to sneak away while the monkey kept on chattering.

Wait, the monkey said. Didn't you say you want to be human?

Yes, the fox said. I'd like to be human. I want to know more about magic, the fox said.

Why be human? You are born a fox, he said. A fox is what you are meant to be. Why change your destiny?

Because my destiny is to be a human, the white fox replied stubbornly.

Chuckling, the monkey pointed towards a direction. Why would any animal try and become the savages that some – no, most humans are confused him, but if you really must, he said, you will find the magician you were seeking – well, more than one, really – somewhere on the other side of the forest, in the plateaus yonder.

The fox irritably thanked him. Courtesy isn't something that she grasped yet. Time, however, was something that she understood. But the monkey stopped her yet again from going.

What is it this time? Asked the fox, impatient.

You need a name, said the monkey. All humans have names. It's not possible to become one without a name.

Why do they need names? Asked the fox.

Because as a human, they are the ones that matters, chuckled the monkey. We animals think with the world. Humans think with themselves. So? Won't you take up your own name?

But the fox didn't care. She simply left the monkey alone with the bonfire blazing in the background.

* * *

Kay.

I was hoping that I properly captured her 'cold' behavior. Did I do it properly?

I don't think I did, I was messing around with a new style I found from some books that I read.

Well, if you found any mistakes, please leave a review/PM. I'll take any mistakes. Especially the ones about grammar. Did I ever mention that my formal english is fucking terrible?

Next chapter should be up pretty soon, I've been forcing myself to write more than usual to get used to dat author lyfe. And by pretty soon I REALLY hope that doesn't mean like ages later next week like this one is.


	7. Chapter 6

AHAHAHAAHAHAHAH.

Yeah it's been too long.

Basically I didn't upload for nearly a month just because I got really flustered writing this chapter. I started to run into all sorts of self-doubt. Did I do this right? Didn't the writing turn out to be shitty? Is it really okay to continue on forwards? And then I stop writing, and tell myself that I need a break, but that just spiraled on into the next hour and then day and so on and so on.

This is why (meaningful) reviews are so important to us authors. Because honestly, it's a sign of reassurance. You're doing something right, there's nothing wrong, you don't have to worry. Only that I'm a worrywart, and though reviews have been mostly positive, they don't tell me what I'm doing right, and what I'm certain I'm probably doing wrong. And without that reassurance, some of us just have trouble.

It's not that I'm telling you that I'm not writing due to a lack of reviews. I'm determined to get to the end of this damned series. It's just that sometimes, as an author, the sense of doubt that you get from not writing something correctly is immense, especially for a perfectionist like me.

In other news, my country actually blocked this site. Buncha bastards. NOT GONNA STOP ME THO THE SAD TRAIN GOES ON

* * *

You stare at the parchment.

Your mind is about as blank as the parchment. It's coming at the worst possible time. You can't think of a single word to write – to open this essay – and it's due… it's due…

You glance at the calendar on the far side of the room. Tomorrow.

Now, some people, namely everyone who had ever had the privilege to teach a student for extended periods of time in their lifetime, would say that you were just a lazy asshole and can't be bothered to do your homework on time. But that's not true. You had other things to do, other, far more important things to do than send in your homework on time.

Well, technically, you're not really submitting your homework on time, it's just a personal timetable that you made up for yourself. You determined that it'll take around this long for your border visas to be processed, and thus you scheduled your workload appropriately. You're _trying_ not to be the procrastinating asshole that you were…

Until, of course, a half-dead fox dragged herself to your front door. Then you had to take care of her.

You're pretty sure your teachers wouldn't buy that excuse, not in a million years, so you're going to either have to wait a million years out or try and finish this essay while you have the dreaded writer's block. Either way, the results would probably not be favorable.

You want to sleep, too. You've been staring at the parchment for a literal hour, trying to figure out something to put on it, a word, an angle to start writing from. In writing, the most difficult part is the beginning. Continuing from the beginning is easy as long as you know what you want to write. Or know how to begin to write, that is. But you don't know that. There are a billion words swirling behind your eyes, each of them auditioning to become the words and phrases which starts your homework, except that you don't have the time to check them one by one, so you just rush the words through your head and find nothing as your thoughts settle into a dazed panic.

Writer's blocks are the worst.

Something hit you in the back of your head. "Ow," you mutter.

Whatever it was, it was elastic enough to bounce off the back of your head and into the lap of a grinning fox, cuddling the ball with her tails.

The half-dead fox no longer looked quite half-dead anymore. Clearly, her time in your care had improved her health by leaps and bounds, despite it being only two days ago that she was mortally wounded. It's probably partly due to the overloaded heal spell that you cast on her. She's transitioning from ungrateful patient to annoying freeloader very well, too, although thankfully, she's keeping her trigger finger in check. She's not trying to randomly kill you or threaten you.

You do suspect however that's because she already knows that you probably won't try to contest her, and she's right. You won't. She's far too strong and dangerous to contest.

You try instead to stop thinking about these other unimportant things and try and marshal your brainpower into making your arm move across the paper in a way such that words that makes meaningful… meanings… appear on them…

Man, writer's block sucks, doesn't it?

The nature of the task that you were working on is a 'short' two thousand word essay regarding the nature and the extent of interference that a summoner could work on his champion, whilst on the Fields of Justice.

It's really hell, because you know all the answers, but you don't have a bloody clue on how to spew all of your answers out in a structured manner. The key word was, of course, structured – your teachers don't take kindly to your school grades if you don't follow the exact format that they wanted. It's a pretty stupid system to test how much you yourself as a student know about the nature of the League of Legends, but you can't really rebel against the system. School, unfortunately, doesn't work that way.

But you might be working on a breakthrough. Yeah, you'll probably start the essay off with the usual opening sentence and paragraph bullshit, the usual stuff, okay, that'll probably cover the first two hundred words, and then you'll probably bust out a couple, no, three, five paragraph about magic bonds and how they create the localized distortions that are known as Summoner Spells… no, wait. You'll need citations… crap, where was that book…

Another ball hit you at the back of the head and bounced back to a waiting fox. Oh, yeah. Distractions.

"Sod off," you mutter.

"Ah, but I'm booored…"

"You're awfully chipper and healthy for someone that was practically dead a few days ago."

Something zapped past your ear, and you reflexively wince. It dissipated against the window that you were facing, turning back into a faint mist. "Cut back the sass, servant… and besides, I do think it's rather because my servant has been taking _such_ good care of me."

You sigh, and turned around.

She's still bedridden, lying down in a careless manner, one leg under the sheets, fixing you with her trademark mischievous grin. She's weakly cradling the ball between her legs, which prevented you from seeing her otherwise outrageously exposed panties, although past experiences indicates that she probably wouldn't give three fucks if the entire world had seen it .Her hair had also grown wild, fuzzy, and unkempt, but somehow, this curiously made her prettier, in a wild kind of manner - the kind of feral beauty that an unkempt shaggy wolf, or, in this case, fox might have.

"Alright, alright," you sigh. "What is it _this _time, Mistress?"

"Show me what you've been working on."

That took you a little off-guard. "Why?" It isn't like the fox to want to know about anything that doesn't concern her directly.

She shrugged. "For all I know, it could be a message to someone outside, some spell you're working on to kill me, or some other little thing… Ah, could it be a message to your… how do humans say it… _girlfriend_?" She grinned wickedly.

You don't think that she really cares if you were trying to kill her or trying to get rid of her. You simply don't have the means to, and both of you knew it. It's not like anyone outside would understand your circumstances. At most, she'll pretend to be your girlfriend or sister or mother or aunt or something else, and your complaints would be put down as those of an upstart young boy. It was almost unfair how the odds are stacked on her side.

"If you're so healthy, why don't you come and see it for yourself?"

"Because if I move, I'll be really sick, and I guess I'll die~"

You sigh, and rolled up the blank parchment, and then dragged your chair towards her bedside, knocking over several small book stacks in the process. You never really did get to finish cleaning your room last time. Sitting down, you aggressively unfurl the blank parchment in front of her.

"See? It's literally nothing. I haven't even started on it yet."

"And yet you've been sitting in front of the table for nearly half an hour now. What a useless man you are." More sly smiles directed towards you.

"Look, it's – I – "

"Fox caught your tongue? Ate it too, perhaps?"

"Yes," you sigh, "and my pen arm as well." You attempt to convey to her the concept of homework. "It's an exercise given to me by someone else, to prove that I understand something."

"A kind of exercise humans do to prove that they understand something?"

"Yes… it's like… well… Just something you do to hone your skills and understanding of something?" you tried.

"Seems rather pointless. Why not just do something repeatedly in order to gain mastery of it?" asked the fox primly. "Mother foxes watch as their students try to hunt, and when they fail, they simply do it again. Again, again, and again until they finally succeed."

"We can't repeat this process until mastery… it's all… well… it's less of something that you can do freely and more of something that you think about?"

"How pointless, then," she sighs.

"It's magic," you angrily defend yourself. "It's not something that you just do again and again, especially if we're talking about destructive sorts of sorcery."

"Magic?" She sat up straighter. "You study magic? But you're no sorcerer or noble, and you're just a commoner…"

_Since when are you interested in magic?_ You thought to yourself.

"Yes, but I'm just one in training, alright? Now stop bothering me and let me go do my homework."

You turn away, dragging the chair back to your table, but before you could do so, something grabbed at your arm.

It was her. "What is it?"

"I won't disturb you until you're done, but when you are… will you teach me more about magic?"

She stared into your eyes with her yellow ones, an almost-pleading look on her face as she grasped your arm. Seeing her like this was almost cute, until you remember that she was dangerous and potentially able to kill you. Should you still teach her more about magic?

"I thought you already have your own?" you asked, gingerly shaking her arm off yours.

"Yes," she muttered, "but that's obvious. It's something that I've always known how to do. Teach me more about magic. Help me understand it."

You thought about it. "I'd ask what I'd get in return, but the answer would be that you wouldn't kill me, wouldn't it. You'd just spare my life or something like that."

She smiled wanly. "Yes, but I'd rather not resort to death threats every time I ask a favor out of you."

You sigh yet again, while massaging your temples. "Sure, sure, I guess. Just… let me write. Give me my peace and quiet. And not now. Tomorrow. It's late at night, and I just want to get this done. Alright?"

"You have your terms," she said softly.

* * *

It was two hours later. Your arms _ache_.

That was incorrect, too. It's one arm that's aching, and that's your right hand. It's your writing hand, and you've written roughly two thousand words, probably more. It's definitely three parchments later, though, and a lot of what you've written appears to be what intelligent people would call 'filler'. Because really, you weren't really thinking since the last five hundred words or so. You only wanted to bloat the contents as much as possible and just get the damn thing over with.

Also, you nearly crashed into your parchment several times during the course of the writing. You are sleepy. Very, very sleepy. It's that state of being barely coherent again.

Also, for a night like this, it's rather hot. Where's that air-conditioning rune again? God damn it. You randomly slam some areas of the table before finally managing to activate the rune, and you were rewarded by a short gust of cold air before the spellwork broke, leaving you hot and angry and above all extremely tired.

To hell with the schedule. You'll just cram the few bits of the essay sometime else, you thought.

Well, time to sleep.

You shuffle yourself off to your makeshift mattress in the kitchen area and crash down on it.

The fox stared at you curiously, before nodding off to sleep herself.

* * *

The room was blazing hot when you woke up.

Actually, that part wasn't new. You wrote the air-conditioning runes embedded into the walls of your house in such a way that they turn off whenever it was a certain time of the day. Given how you normally sleep with a kind of blanket, the room would then turn blazing hot, waking you up immediately and making it uncomfortable to stay in bed. If there's something you learned in life, it's that waking up is easy, it's getting out of bed that's very difficult because of how damn comfortable the bed tends to be. The solution is to remove that comfort.

Right now, however, you have a tingling little alarm bell that was your body telling you: need more sleep. The bed wasn't comfortable, and you're pushing the 6-hour minimum sleep limit by sleeping for five instead, to save more time. Your body is warning you: push anything too hard today, and you're going to fall sick for sure. Heck, you can already feel the phlegm building up in your lungs.

But you're a busy student with responsibilities, so you throw away the complaints of your body aside like a ragdoll and tried to carry on with your day.

Right. What is it that you DO, anyways?

You wander around for a while in a bleary, post-waking daze, trying to put everything together back in place. Trying to enforce a sense of reality to your surroundings, you wander off towards the kitchen, fueled by an ancient, primal urge –

Wait, weren't you sleeping in the kitchen?

Oh, right. You're already in the kitchen. Hnngh.

You sloppily reach for the cupboard and drag out a loaf of bread. It's conditioned to keep the bread warm at all times, with, again, magic. There was actually several rules about not using magic for such basic use, because magic used too frequently could lead to more complicated things like the rune wars, but you figured out that you don't really give three shits about that and went ahead and used it for the more mundane things in life to make life easier. It's about as hard as it's going to get, anyways.

A rubber ball crashed into your face. It weight about as much as air, and yet you didn't resist its momentum. You allow yourself to be knocked down back into your bed.

"No, you're not sleeping again," said a feminine voice from across the room. "You're making me breakfast, I'm _starving_."

The ball smacks into your face again. You open your eyes.

It appears to be floating in mid-air.

"Rise and shine, my pet, now go make me some damn breakfast," said a grumpy voice. It's the fox, isn't it.

"Maybe you should stop knocking me into the bed then," you heard yourself yawn. "Leave me in – " you pause to stifle another yawn – " peace, I'll make it eventua-"

"It's around eleven, in human time, and I'm very hungry and bedridden, and I am _very_ tempted to kill you if you don't get up and make more food, _for me_, this very second."

There was a sort of silence where you just sort of accept that it was eleven while still being horrified that you woke up as late as eleven. You feel like a lazy bumhole, but because you're just so tired and disoriented, you don't really… feel much. It's already eleven. Get over it. Just go make breakfast.

You're not even that hungry. The human body has a sort of hunger timer, where it decides on its own when to be hungry, and you've slept way past that timer.

Ah well. At least this way, you don't get too distracted when making her breakfast.

There isn't that much food left over in the pantry, but there was some leftover tuna paste. It's cold, just like everything else in the pantry, but you manage to smear said paste with some ketchup and mayonnaise, and make a tuna sandwich. It should satisfy foxes. They eat fish, right? Right?

Confirmation came in around ten minutes later, when you brought the sandwich to a very irate and hungry fox, whom munched it down quickly. "What is this, anyways?" she asked in-between bites.

"Tuna," you absently reply. You should be making lunch, but once the post-sleep daze drifted off you, you realized that you had an entire schedule full of homework to do that you haven't done because you were sleeping, and so you were trying your damndest to finish at least the first parchment for the assignment.

You kneel down next to the bed as she ate, using the stool that you were sitting on as a table. And you begin writing.

At least the writing part's easy. During essays, words just flow off the quill and into the parchment. Drawing is going to be a bit difficult, since your runes were never the neatest.

You heard a whistling noise in the distance. You weren't boiling anything, so you're going to assume that one of your air-conditioning runes blew a gasket due to bad penmanship on your part. Yeah, drawing's going to be tough, isn't it.

You try and ignore the noise and focus on the parchment instead. You gently start drawing on the paper, nervous. The first stroke was easy, but the second and third was stuttering. You gulp, and try to assume your mindset whenever you're working on something: to ignore everything that _could_ or _might_ be wrong and instead completely on what you know is wrong. It served you well enough in the past, you supposed.

Then came the next three diagrams. You maneuver your way through them delicately, ignoring any sort of mistakes that you might've made.

But before you could start your last rune, a fluffy object coiled around your hand, gently stopping it.

"Geroff," you mumble.

"I just want to see what you're doing," she replied calmly. She peered slightly over your head.

"What are those?"

"Homework."

"What is it that you are stu…stum… stummying?"

"It's studying, and I'm trying to learn magic, so I can finally be rid of you for ever and ever. Now go away and let me study in peace, you annoyance."

She lightly tapped you on the shoulder, and your entire body went limp, and crashed on the floor, except that you didn't even feel it. The world turned sideways. Gravity became nonexistent.

When the feeling passed, you feel the entire world re-align itself and your captor slash patient holding the paper. She traced her fingers over the barely-drying ink, smudging it in some places.

"Stop that," you moan. "I don't want to have to do the homework again!"

"Oh, it's not like it's going to be unreadable," she mutters. "Well, you did promise me to teach me more about this magic business, didn't you?"

"Later! I'm busy!"

"Doing this?" she asked, as she waved the precious piece of paper around.

"Yes!"

"Well, this is about magic, isn't it? So why can't you just teach me while doing this?"

"Because… well…"

Realization dawned. You just realized, it probably wouldn't be that hard. And she seems to be a fast learner, anyways. And the best part is, she'll probably stop nagging.

That is, she'll very hopefully stop nagging you to teach her.

"Well?"

"… Fine."

* * *

I'm cutting off the chapter right there.

Not because I'm a fan of cliffhangers, I just physically_ cannot _write any more. This has been an extremely tough chapter to write for me because of all the self-doubt and the nagging feeling that I'm doing something wrong. That's why - again - I need the input from you guys. I feel like if I try to write more I'll spiral into a cycle of delaying the fiction further and further and further again.

That aside: even if you're not a fan of me, review whoever you're a fan of. It helps FAR more than you can ever imagine.

okay yeah toodles that's the heavy talk over gimme some more UoL vs Fnatic plox


	8. Chapter 7

Last update was about a month and a half ago T.T

I know I know I'm sorry, but got blocked by my govt (god bless Indonesia) and I spent some time trying to break through the blockade. Proxy is kind of a new thing for me. But then I spent a) some time entranced by the proxy itself (HELLOOOOO THERE RULE 34) and b) some other time thinking about the story of this chapter.

My biggest worry is pacing, because if you take a romance like this too fast, it becomes unrealistic and forced, and that's the bane of most fanfictions. And I felt like I was crossing that line, so I put a lot of time in trying to manipulate this chapter so that it didn't force the issue too much, although I suspect I may have to do corrections in earlier chapters.

If you can help me by telling me where it is too fast or where it is too slow or anything like that that would be much appreciated. I can't promise an update on the next week or anything like that, but it would be much sooner than frickin 1 month later, THAT much I can promise. I have a mini-commish to work on as well as JLPTN tests and things like that.

Also, the LCS started again! Yay ^^

* * *

"Remind me again: you can do magic already, why do _I_ have to teach you?" you grumble. "It's like asking a baby to teach you how to run."

The annoying, annoying fox facing you raised an eyebrow. "Because, of course, I asked you to. Mind getting to it?"

You sigh. Well, at least if you follow her orders, you _might_ get things over with. Also, at least when she's happy she's almost bearable. You're not really sure how her being 'happy' works since you haven't seen her being ecstatic lately, but you sure hope that she has some sort of nice side to her, because if not, then she'll just leave you as soon as she recovers and kill you.

"Right," you mutter under your breath.

You sit on the edge of the bed, the folding table between you. Due to how large her nine tails are, you couldn't help but be sitting near one of them, and you had to fight the sudden urge to just stroke the tail and revel in its… well… furriness. It's a weird human thing, you suppose. Why _do_ humans feel the urge to stroke anything with a fur, like dogs and cats? You don't know, but you'd rather not stroke touch _this_ fox's fluffy tail, at least not when she's awake.

Also, you randomly started thinking about the floor. Probably that's because the floor is accurately replicating the current state of your mind: messy. You're just not _sure_ how to do this. How do you teach someone with no understanding of the fundamental forces of magic… well… magic? How do you explain it in her terms? What does she know and what doesn't she-

Oh, yeah, you probably should start with that, shouldn't you. I mean, how do you know where to begin if you can't

You thought for a bit.

"Right," you said.

"Is that the only word you can say?" muttered the fox.

You ignored her, and started frisking the nearby bookshelf for something. It's really more full of paper than anything else. You're not sure why you haven't

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"I need to know what is it that you already know so I don't have to waste time teaching you everything again," you answer back.

You pull out an old, battered file, pulled out a piece of paper at random, and tossed it in the general direction of the bed. "Here," you said. She caught it weakly.

"What is this?"

"It's… it's a paper. A pretty old one. Like, back four years or something. It has a lot of basic magic stuff in it. Why don't you take a look at it, see what you understand about it?"

She stared at the piece of paper with great concentration. Then she shook her head.

"I…" she started.

"Yeah, so it's slightly a little bit more complicated, but we can pick things up as things go –" you continue, but she froze you mid-sentence with a glare that had 'shut up' stamped all over it.

"I can't read."

"Eh?"

"You heard what you heard," she said angrily. "I can't read."

"But you can speak, and … understand… and…" you stammer.

"I am, as you _may or may not_ have noticed, am _not_ a human. I can understand you, and I can talk to you, but I can't… read." She looked downwards, and you managed to glimpse a slight reddish tinge beneath her eyes. Is she blushing?

Either way, this is going to turn things complicated. If she can't read, then… well, it'll be rather difficult to teach her.

Magic in Runeterra, after all, is practically a language into itself. Runes containing ancient powers as well naturally occurring runic patterns are often found all over the land to empowers one's self, even the patterns that make up one's self and determine their magical aptitude… and without the ability to read even read Basic, pronounce the runes, shape them, craft them, identify them, teaching her magic is impossible.

You tilt your head slightly to show her your consternation. You're pretty sure that from the way that she's fixatedly staring at her lap she has absolutely no idea that you're tilting your head, but you do it anyways. You felt the compelling need to do it, to show the universe in general:

"Exactly how am I supposed to teach you magic, then?"

She looked up, and her cheeks reddened even further. The small part of your brain that isn't admiring how cute she looked is busy taking notes that your foxycaptor does not appear to enjoy being upstaged.

"I don't know!" She glared at you. "I can do magic, but you _study_ it, shouldn't you come up with something? I tried killing you, you pulled out some magic shield that I've never even _seen_ before! You know _something_, and we both know the only reason that you're not a dead, drained man is because of that something, and I _demand_ to know what it is!"

You shied away from her onslaught, but then, as she deflated, you noticed how tired she looked. You realized that she's also been hiding her post-magical exhaustion recovery better than you've noticed. "I apologize," she muttered, returning back to a smoother, more measured tone. "I… am exhausted today, I think. I've come rather far and wide to understand myself, and yet, I've gained so little…"

You said nothing. You've found that, especially where females are concerned, angry outbursts are better to treat with silence. You definitely don't want to risk pissing them off again.

The silence hung there, in the air, as neither of you had anything left to say, and it cloyed and thickened and dampened the atmosphere between both of you. And you were the first one to grow uncomfortable of it.

"Please bear in mind," you mutter. Then you cleared your throat, because the words that came out of your mouth were unintelligible even to yourself. "Please bear in mind," you say, "that I'm just a student, and I only dabble in experimental magic like that, and… well…"

You sigh. This might get you killed, but you're not about to lie. Even if you did, you really don't think you can fool her. Knowledge isn't something you fake. Competence? Maybe. Sheer knowledge? Nope.

"I'm not good at magic."

"Bullshit," scoffed your captor.

It's a little surprising to hear such coarse words from someone so beautiful.

"That is what humans say, right? When they want to express disbelief or anger?" she said. "I know human magic. You shape the flow, bend it, restrict it, _rule_ over it. Therefore, you must have had a rule in mind when you created your strange magic. And at the very least, I will learn something about how human magic works – after all, the men that I've… ah... met? Consorted?" She spoke as if she was trying out each word. "Well, they are all much too eager for _me_ to obtain any information out of them."

She smiled softly.

"Whatever. I suppose the point is, even if our magic varies greatly… hm. I'm not sure I phrased that correctly. But even if it does, I wish to learn more about your human magic. It may allow me to…"

She fell silent, and the room lapsed into silence as well, as you waited for her to finish her sentence. But then you realized that she had already began brooding. "Allow you to what?" you eventually ask.

She turned towards you. "Oh, I wouldn't tell you _my_ goal yet," she chuckled. "You don't deserve that… yet. You just sit there, take care of _my_ health and teach me the information that I… hm. Want? Crave? And I might, might just eventually tell you… and more?" She winked. It wasn't an energetic wink, but the seductive intent was there all the same.

You shake your head. "I'll tell you all I know. I can't promise that it'll be a lot, if it'll satisfy you. Also, aren't those terribly bold words for someone that's been bedridden for the past, well, three days?"

She chuckled wearily. "Yes, yes," she said, in a sing-song voice that was world-weary, "yes they are, but I can't tolerate insubordination, and I'd really rather not kill you."

The way she said the word 'kill' so nonchalantly almost surprised you, but then you remembered – that behind the beautiful lady, and inside the injured, bedridden woman, is an animal. And foxes had been known to be far from merciful.

"Fine," you mutter. "Fine, fine," you repeat in a louder voice. "I'll teach you the bloody thing. I'll teach you what I know of, at least. But you'll have to do what I say. Kill me if you want, but if you're really going to learn magic, then you're going to have to do the basics. Like reading. That's _really_ important. I can't even begin teaching you without that."

"Fair enough," she replied.

* * *

You finally gave into her wiles and just started teaching her the damn magical things already. At the very least, this allows you to review your _own_ basics. That's almost falsely optimistic, however. You needed to teach her from the extreme basics, from the language itself. The language of magic.

You pull out a large, old, dusty scroll. You blew on it, choked on some dust for your troubles, and gagged. Dust does _not_ taste good. Or smell good.

"Remind me to just do a cleanup of the whole bookshelves once I'm done with this thing," you mutter to yourself. You pointed at it, gestured at the air, and then the scroll ripped itself in half.

Too much power. Whoops. The door also blew itself open. That's just one more wind spell gone awry, you suppose.

"I have _got_ to remember about the power limitations," you mutter to yourself. You pull out a second, identical dusty scroll, and just opened it. The motes of dust that flew due to the scroll being opened danced in the afternoon sunlight as you choked on more dust and gagged.

"For god's sake…" you mutter to yourself. You mutter a lot to yourself, but that's normal. Living alone gets lonely sometimes, and you've developed the habit.

You dragged the scroll over to the bedside, where you find the fox playing with her tails. Then you drag your table, wincing as it grinds on the wooden floor, and plopped the scroll on top of the table.

"Here," you said, pointing at the runes. "You say that as 'ae', and the one next to it is 'bee'…"

To her credit, she's relatively fast. They weren't kidding when they said that foxes were cunning, intelligent, and/or wily. This one certainly is. You managed to make it all the way to Z with relatively few problems.

"I'd ask you to polish your skills with the alphabets so that you can remember them quickly, but that's going to take too long, and I have tasks of my own to do," you said. "So I'll just have you know that these runes are important: they're also a foundation of magic."

She raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Around a couple of thousand years ago, in the beginning of proper human civilization, the sorcerer Merill discovered that these runes had recurring patterns in nature. He quickly discovered that, when touched, written, or generally interacted with in certain patterns and combinations, these runes could unleash the power hidden within them, and as such, one could cast magic."

"Of course," you continued, "to actually cast magic, you need to have that little spark inside you, that little aptitude to actually interact with these runes at a spiritual level, so not _everyone_ can cast magic freely. Advances in magical studies today made it so normal people can at least activate magic on their own, however," you finish.

"So then how do you explain naturally occurring magic?" she asked. You tried to hide it, but you can't help feeling slightly impressed and embarrassed at the same time. Nobody asked these questions when they just started studying magic, but this fox is learning at the speed of sound. To be fair, you can't exactly call your teachers 'accommodating of questions'. They're more of the type to just write down questions on the board and then leave the class to mess around with the other teachers or students and just ignore their own duties in general.

"We think that your magic comes from naturally occurring runic patterns in nature. Like, if you pay attention to the runes on the paper, they're pretty generic patterns. When they occur in nature, they can bring about power – that's where ley-lines come from, by the way."

"What are ley lines?"

"You've probably encountered it yourself," you said. "It's basically…" you vaguely waved your hands in the air. "Lines full of power, basically. Everyone gets power from them, and they occur – or at least, used to occur – naturally. It kind of changed greatly in the last five centuries, but I'm not going to bother you with the history." Mostly because, truth be told, you slept right through history yourself. You're not really sure what to tell her yourself.

The lesson continued as such: she asked questions. You answered them, which, in turn, broods more questions. The rhythmic pattern of questioning and answering continued peacefully into the afternoon, and at about three, rudely interrupted by grumbling noises from both of your stomachs.

You both looked down at your respective bellies. "Whoops," you mutter. "Lunch's a thing, apparently." To her, you said: "Wait here. I'm gonna go get food, I'm hungry. I'll get you something as well, I suppose."

To which she replied by continuing to intensely stare at the various parchments that you left with her.

You shook your head and walked into the kitchen area.

* * *

As you opened the pantry, your stomach sank, followed quickly by your heart and your spirits. It was empty. It was desolate. There was nothing except for… for…

Dear god.

Lunch was vegetables.

Yeah, you can't help it. You had nothing else in the pantry left. Just some mayonnaise and a bunch of lettuce leaves and cabbages and the like. You already used up all the meat in the days before, and since that fox –captor – student - oh, how the list goes on – of yours isn't likely to let you leave and get some food from the adjoining market, you don't exactly enjoy your chances of survival in the coming few days.

Yours was a mournful face as you soullessly stirred the mayonnaise together with the rest of the vegetables in the big bowl. Oh, how the times have changed. You're stuck in a house with a murderous fox and you can't do jack diddly about her. _And_ you have to teach her. Magic. She obviously knows how to do magic, why the heck do _you_ have to teach her? Eh? She can't even read basic runic! Does anyone have any idea how hard it is to have to teach someone like this from the bottom-up?

Other than regular teachers, obviously. You suppose they know.

It's also an extremely strange situation to be stuck in. You get a fox that dropped more or less out of the heavens, tried to kill you, and then imprisoned, and now is trying to squeeze off magic knowledge out of you –

It's bizarre. It's really weird. It's really _disruptive_, too. You just want to get back to homeworks. Homeworks are nice. Okay, they're not nice, but you just want to get them over with.

As you stir, you suddenly become more aware of the door right next to you.

And yeah, it leads to the outside world, and you can probably run away. But let's go over the reasons that you can't run, and there's only one: the fox will go insane, and then she'll destroy all of your schoolwork.

For reasons that you would much rather not think about, you'd rather not miss them. Because Demacian customs take so long, you were given what was essentially an extended vacation on the borders of Demacia, and any sort of excuse that you give for not handing in schoolwork is essentially nulled and voided. No matter how much evidence there were to justify it.

Either you hand it in, or…

Man, expulsion would seem like a godsend compared to the hell that _will_ follow. There's a good reason why there are so few summoners in the land.

You glumly continue to stir the salad, adding more oil into the goopy mix. It must also be stressed at this point that you're not exactly a master chef, or any kind of chef at all. Sandwiches were your second-to-last resort, the primary one being Ionian takeaway food.

Parting the food into two bowls, you carried both back into your bedroom, although it's more of a living room at this point. The arrival of the fox didn't really change anything, because your life can be summed up in four short phases:

Wake up.

Eat.

Study (at the table).

Sleep.

The fifth one, and the one you don't really have time to do: teach a goddamn fox.

* * *

She was _still_ reading by the time you got back. It took you a good ten minutes to make them salads, too.

For someone whom involuntarily became a bookworm on the road to becoming a summoner, that, is, of course, a very short amount of time to study in, but you've yet to see anyone outside of summoner school hold focus for that long of a time, so you stuff down your astonishment and small feelings of being impressed with a large bite of salad. Ah, yes. The bitterness and oiliness from a little bit too much mayonnaise mixes together quite well with the astonishment.

With your other hand, you forked over the salad towards the still-reading fox, atop the bed.

"Eat," you say with a full mouth.

The fox lowered the scroll, and looked at the proferred bowl with what one might call a less-than-happy expression. "It's… a lot of greens," she said hesitantly, wrinkling her face. "I'm a fox, we don't eat greens. I demand meat –"

"We're out of it," you shot back quickly with a full mouth. "This is literally all I have left in the pantry. Besides, I _know_ for a fact foxes eat berries, and some leaves, and –"

You don't even look up anymore. You can feel the air being charged with magical energy as she summons more of her fox-fires.

Except that…

"Shoot all you want," you continued with a mouth full of food. "It's not really going to change much, unless your little balls of fire changes food as well. Then that might be nice. I might actually have meat, and I don't have to go to the market tomorrow – "

"The market?" she asked. You note that there was a, haha, note of fear inside her voice. "I'm not about to let you –"

"You'll have to, though. You're not nearly well enough to go hunting for food, and to be honest, I'm somewhat glad that you're not, because otherwise I might be dead instead." Man, the bitterness of the salad is just about as bitter as your voice is right now. "So this is what's definitely going to happen: we starve tonight. And then tomorrow morning I'll go to the nice little town nearby and we'll get some food in our stomachs –"

"And a spear in mine, I presume," snarled the fox. Her pose was not dissimilar to that of a cornered cat – ready to pounce, ready to flee. And because she was bedridden and barely able to move, she looked like an idiot – or would have, if she wasn't so pretty.

"No, I'm not going to – oh." Realization dawned, and then you laughed.

You've read plenty about people who laughed in times of extreme stress, or when they're at extreme levels of a certain emotion, usually negative, and for some odd reason, that emotion overloads itself and loops around to its opposite extremity, and then they would start laughing, because the entire world became so utterly damned amusing that they can't help themselves, or they'd perceive something about their problems that was similarly amusing - the list goes on. The point is, that now you laugh the same mirthless laugh as countless of others before you did, and it was probably due to her bewilderment that you were _not_ blasted into magical pieces at all.

"What?" asked the bewildered fox.

"No, nothing, nothing… just… hehehe… you really are, at the end of the day, just an animal, aren't you? You haven't really grasped any… ahah… 'human' concepts…"

Normally, taunting – or attempting to taunt - your captor like that is a death wish. Or at the very least a sentence. But she was much too bewildered to react normally, and besides, you've already hurled caution out of the window into a galestorm and it was flying away about as fast as your energy is, right now. You collapse to the floor, exhausted. It didn't really mean much since you were sitting on it anyways.

You now lie flat, facing the ceiling. It wasn't completely flat, because you can feel book covers digging into your back – but whatever. You're tired and amused. Not a very common combination.

"Sorry – so sorry," you said – "It's really just – heh – you'd think that, wouldn't you? You'd think that all I'm going to try to do is to kill you, or to finish what we started a couple of days ago, but you're dead wrong. Like, yeah, you're kind of right if this was anyone else, but not really me – " you said, but you got no further before the usual magical bolt buried itself next to your face.

"Talk less," she snarled, but you just responded by giggling weakly.

"You're not going to kill me, I don't think," you said. "You need me to take care of you. And you need me to teach you magic, and frankly, there aren't many summoners out there that are willing to teach you that. The ones that I know would be too powerful or too wise for you to even get close to, so you probably wouldn't be able to mess with them. And honestly, I have – and I'm completely honest here- almost zero intentions to harm you. I want you the _hell_ out of my way so I can finish all of my stupid homework. Only reason why I haven't tried anything is that I'll be too dead to try it out, and even if I were to alert the authorities now… they're going to poke around in my house, and then they'll take away a few things, for 'gratituity', because the stupid demacian police force are just like that…"

"Look, my point is, they're going to ransack my house along with your dead body, and I'll be stuck up the creek without a paddle and no mana because I can't finish any of my duties and they're going to – oh, god, the things they're going to do to me…"

You lapse out into dread silence as the fox-fires fizzled themselves out.

Finally, the fox spoke, in a much calmer tone this time:

"What kind of systems did the humans build that they would rather lose their lives than abandon their… their mission?" she asked softly.

"Oh, not everyone acts like this," you replied in a sardonically cheerful voice. "Just me, really, and let's just say that failing school, at this point, is not… not quite an option. So yes, my only objective right now is to finish the rest of my work, and my options, as I see it, is only to get rid of you. And I'd rather not kill, not that I could even if I tried, and I'd rather not have nosy people poking around in my house, taking all of my things because they're basically corrupt like so, so yes, I suppose I'll nurse you and _babysit_ you until you can get the heck out of my life."

With that, you simply deflated. You've never been so tired. Or so bitter. It's probably the salad, again.

"I'm being honest here," you said, tiredly. "I just want to live the quiet but stressful life of doing my homework again and again and again, so that… well… let's just say I owe my parents for getting me this far."

That was the first time you mentioned your parents in a long while, but you don't really have time for sob stories right now. You just need… you just need your motives explained. Maybe she'll understand. Hopefully she would.

"So yeah, do me a favor. Trust me a little bit, let me outside, stuff like that. I get it, you just strolled into someone's house and tried to kill them, and it's so weird that they're not trying to kill you back, but that's just going to be catastrophic to me and things I'm going to do. They're going to ask questions, a-and take stuff, and…"

You gestured tiredly, and she nodded. There was, at the very least, a brief moment of mutual understanding. And then silence.

She broke it faster than you did, though. "Oh, I tire of this," she muttered, and cast a withering glance at you. "Go," she muttered.

Eh?

"Go," she repeated. And then she threw her hands up tiredly, like someone giving up – an extremely human gesture. "I can't force you to stay without outright maiming you, at any rate, and I suppose that would probably severely limit my pursuit for human magic, wouldn't it? It would be difficult to teach when you're missing a leg, or both of them."

"Besides," she continued, "I can always kill whoever you bring back with you. Then I'll just have to recover on my own, something that'll take a while and would doubtless be annoying. But I'll take it."

"Aren't you being paranoid?" you mutter under your breath.

"In the animal world, paranoia is how we live," she replied quickly. "I have yet to see a human that is worthy of my trust."

"Oh, come on!" you shout. "I took care of you and then –"

"Then I turned on you out of instinct, so yes, I can't exactly trust you after turning on you myself, could I? You could be plotting revenge, for all I know," she replied coldly. Then she softened. "Look, you are more… accommodating than most humans I've seen. I've seen the kind that would rather kill themselves or try to fight back. Or the kind to just kill a dying woman right there and then. Most would probably have just raped me in my sleep, or nurse me only to do the exact same thing afterwards."

"You took me in and then took care of me, and then I tried to kill you – ah, mostly out of instinct, I suppose, but then I spared you because I recognized you as different compared to most others, for all the reasons I told you, and now I possibly make a serious lapse in judgement to let you out. Necessary, but still what probably is a folly. Do me a favor and tell me I _could_ trust you. That aside… pass me the bowl, and be on your way."

With that, she returned to focusing on her scroll, and then you pass her the bowl.

"I thought foxes don't eat greens," you said.

"We don't, not when we can't help it. So do me a favor and go get us some food, and god forbid-"

"If I come back with anything more than that, yeah, yeah." You finished for her.

So you finished your bowl and walked out.

And once outside, you thought:

_That went a little better than expected._

* * *

I don't have a lot of things to say, just thanks to everyone that actually read this thing thus far. Feedback is something I crave. It is my food.

Pls feed me. I nid items. I want my deathcap.


End file.
